1939 - Indians will, again, take issues to Hollywood and demand that they play Native characters - only.
1937, Nov 24 - The Times - Indians Resent Movies
The American Indian surveyed the movie, stage and fiction version of his forefather.. and said figuratively: "Ugh!" So Chief Fred Eitawageshik, leader of the Michigan Indian Defense association announced he is preparing an active campaign to gain the backing of the 9000 Michigan Indians in a program to stop portrayals of "phony Indians" in fiction and plays.
1939, March 20 - The Rhinelander
Hollywood - Looks as if Hollywood still might be given back to the Indians. All over town there are frontier pictures in the making and the Indian Actors' Association is sending up smoke signals inviting tribesmen to the north and east to come to this land of plenty jobs and wampum.
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| 1939, May 7 The Pittsburgh Press |
Hollywood's habit of casting palefaces in Indian roles while redmen actors go jobless, provoked a protest yesterday from the Six Nations, in convention at the Rochester Museum.
They decided by unanimous vote to take the matter up with Hollywood after one of their leaders pointed out that in a new film on early American history all but one of the Indian actors are "fake" Indians. They contend 174 genuine redmen are registered at the central casting bureau in the film capital.
"It's not that we want to tell Hollywood how to run its business," interposed Nicodemus Bailey, an ex-vaudeville actor and an admirer of Hollywood's showmanship. "Why those folks can even out-Negro the Negro."
"That's right," assented Chairman William B Newell, a Mohawk Indian. "It's just that they are using too many substitutes for the real thing. Why, they even ring in the Mexicans for Indian parts."
"We pay our money to see these movies," said another tribesman, rising to second a resolution for protest to the filmmakers. "Isn't it only fair to the public to ask that movie Indians be real Indians?"
Nicodemus Bailey was ready to vote "aye" along with the others on the resolution, but not until he had put in another word for the movie makers' mastery of their art.
"You'll have to admit that their fake Indians are darn good," said Nicodemus. "Take 'Drums Along the Mohawk.' That was fine."
The resolution presented by Frank Sherman, a Rochester friend of the Indians, expressed the desire of the Six Nations "to see Indians given parts whenever it is possible."
The motion was in line with a large part of the day's convention discussion on the handicaps with which the Indians are faced in finding jobs and proper training for the types of work in which they might excel.
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| 1939, Dec 3 Democrat and Chronicle |
