From Alcatraz to Wounded Knee

An Incredible Life Journey

In 2015, I first became acquainted with one of the most remarkable men I’ve met since moving back to Montana. My friend Adria Jawort and I hosted the Native American Race Relations Healing Symposium at the Billings Public Library in August of that year, and one of the speakers for that event was Johnny Robinson, a former tribal chairman for the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. And to me, one of the most amazing parts of his story is that he was an active member of the Natives that occupied Alcatraz in the 70s, and that he was also at Wounded Knee. His perspective on the difference between these two events is thoughtful and wise. He appeared on my first episode of 56 Counties, the radio show. But the best part  of all of this is that he has become a friend.

When Robinson was a young boy, living on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, he remembers the town crier coming out every morning and announcing what would happen that day.

 “There were a lot of elders still left at that time, people who had fought in many of the famous battles. And they commanded great respect from everyone. We had no running water, no electricity. But when you don’t know any better, you don’t really know what you’re missing. So we didn’t think we had it bad at all.”

Robinson was also immune to much of the racism that was prevalent at the time until his dad took a job in Oklahoma, where they moved to the Southern Cheyenne Reservation, in a part of the country where racism was much more out in the open. He remembers going to a movie and seeing a sign for ‘Negroes and Indians’ pointing up to the balcony. When he and his siblings started up the stairs, someone stopped them and said, “Hey, what are you kids doing?”

Robinson and his siblings are light-skinned, with blue eyes, so the usher didn’t believe that they were Indian. “So I remember sitting down in the regular section, feeling very uncomfortable because I knew it wasn’t where I belonged.”

Another thing Robinson remembers was being told in school that there were only five tribes left in America: Chicasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek and Seminole. “But here we were, Northern Cheyenne, sitting right there. But if you argued with them, you could get knocked around, so I just left. I got tired of being told to shut up when I didn’t just accept what they told me.”

Robinson ended up working on the Tule River Reservation in California, where he was “Living the dream. It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.”

Robinson would have been happy staying there, but fate intervened in 1969 when some friends came by and told them “A bunch of Indians have taken over Alcatraz.”

 “Why?” I asked them.

 “We don’t know, but they’re asking other Indians to join them.”