1968: Basically we want to stop the government's trend toward making Indians with no Indian-ness in them. - Tom Porter, Mohawk
June 30, 1968, The Democrat and Chronicle published an in-depth article about Red Power, written by Talis Bergmanis. From that piece, which will be covered in 2018 when this blog moves towards building a Civil Rights Timeline, I've pulled out a few quotes that follow the theme of this year - identity, image and cultural appropriation.
Tom Porter, then 24, Mohawk living in Rochester, NY, said of the 'red power' movement: "Basically we want to stop the government's trend toward making Indians with no Indian-ness in them. We want to be traditional... and that's not synonymous with 'backward.' We want to be 20th Century Mohawks, Senecas, or Tuscaroras, not 20th Century white men."