Re: [BearwWthoutBorders] Fw: Your Letters Still Work!

Thanks, John. (His is attached following this of mine. John Sime, I should add, is a very long-time resident of Wisconsin.)

I could write a fair sized treatise on historical societies.  That of Wisconsin remains one of the better ones but they are, obviously, having some heavy challenges.  On the whole, I've found the key staff of these outfits, wherever they are, to be cordial, receptive and helpful -- especially if you can get there in person. (Top administrators can be problematic.)  Phones and even e-mail have significant communicative difficulties even under the best of circumstances.  The "old guard" curators tended to be "artists" and some (certainly not all) of the newer breed simply managerial technicians.  The imperative of maintenance of genuinely functional autonomy -- if affiliated directly with state (or, in some instances, local) government -- or if housed in an academic institution  -- is always a major challenge.  

Budget problems are legion and, if a historical society is closely related to a university, lower level staff gaps are often filled with student work study people -- whose empathy and commitment can be uneven.  Also emphases change:  Wisconsin was much interested in social justice activism nationally into the '80s and then began to shift into museums and historical re-enactment.  Mississippi -- whose Department of Archives and History (MDAH) also houses a large collection of mine, roughly identical to that in Wisconsin (my stuff was among their first civil rights material), was just fine when the people with whom I originally connected at the beginning of the '80s remained.  But then, new people came in, and the emphasis on civil rights became somewhat more cautious -- the "moderate orthodoxy" as I often put it.  There's been some strain for several years between myself and the administration of MDAH but their line staff and I have had no problems.  In many of these historical repositories, it's still hard to evoke tangible interest -- beyond tokenism -- in Native Americana.

As one of a vast number of donors-of-papers, I've never viewed myself as overly important and have avoided "fussiness." Hard-working staff don't need that. But, in certain situational tangles, like that enmeshing good Willa Cofield, I press and push very militantly.

Some years ago, the Wisconsin Society acquired the "Old Main" type building at what's now Wisconsin State University, Superior -- but during my first year of college teaching in 1960-61, which was right there at that school, its tag was, as you likely know, simply Wisconsin State College, Superior, or Superior State College.  The old building housed the administration -- e.g., our "mortal" adversary, its Texas-bred president, General Jim Dan Hill, various faculty offices including my small one, some classrooms.

 I met Eldri there and in the summer of '61, we went down into Mississippi. Jim Dan returned to Texas and is now long gone.  The Wisconsin Society has turned the old building into a museum. I am still much around, and even though "some people" might want to see me as a museum piece, I trust that I've successfully avoided that version of purgatory.

All best, Hunter Bear



----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John 
  To: 'Hunter Gray' ; 'Friends of Hunter Bear' 
  Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2013 4:19 PM
  Subject: RE: [BearwWthoutBorders] Fw: Your Letters Still Work!


  Congrats on straightening out the cheeseheads in Madison. The Historical Society has become quite the conglomerate in recent years--spreading out with their Children's Museum and Veterans Museum up at the Square. A lot of the neat old stuff that used to be on display in the main headquarters on campus is no longer around--such as the manikins representing Indians and French fur trappers, who in all fairness probably dated from the Harry Truman era and did look like the victims of leprosy as chunks of the plaster was falling from their faces. But I still miss them.

   

  jhs





  HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
  Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
  Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
  www.hunterbear.org  (social justice)

  See the new expanded/updated edition of my "ORGANIZER'S
  BOOK." It's the inside story of the rise of the massive Jackson
  Movement -- careful grassroots organizing, bloody repression, sell-out 
  and more.  It also covers other organizing campaigns of mine through
   the decades since Mississippi. It's replete with grass-roots organizing
  examples and "lessons."  And it has my new 10,000 word 
  introduction.  Among a myriad of positive comments and reviews:
   ". . .a local activist's important account of the deleterious effects
  the involvement  of national organizations can have on indigenous
  protest movements."  (Historian David Garrow.)
  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

  See the related:  http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

  Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
  http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm

   

  From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Hunter Gray
  Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2013 2:53 PM
  To: Bear Without Borders
  Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
  Subject: [BearwWthoutBorders] Fw: Your Letters Still Work!

   

  This is a kind note just received from Ms Willa Cofield (formerly Willa Johnson) who, seeking the various N.C. Blackbelt Movement documents from my Collection at Wisconsin Historical Society -- I indicated these the other day -- encountered a really surreal, Kafkaesque complex of "process" and "procedures."  I straightened that out in a hurry with a very strong, well-aimed letter designed to cut through the "white tape".  Within a short time after sending it early this morning, the Wisconsin Historical Society reversed itself.  They are sending the documents forthwith -- and at no charge.  My mother always took the position that "Never accept a poor response -- but go straight to the top."  Very good advice that's always served me very well.  And I enjoy doing forceful letters -- always a strong suit of mine.

   

  These problems, which especially affect people communicating and requesting from afar, didn't used to be characteristic of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Things tended to be personal -- and fast. But self-feeding and ever expansive bureaucracy, coupled with the infamous state level budget cuts of a couple of years ago, have led to vine-choked and oft-discouraging thickets.  (H)

   

  ----- Original Message ----- 

  From: Willa 

  To: Hunter Gray 

  Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2013 11:15 AM

  Subject: Your Letters Still Work!

   

  Thanks, Hunter:

   

  Wow!  I am amazed!  In just hours you turned the whole bureaucracy of the 

  Wisconsin Historical Society around and now they are bending over backwards

  to help me.  

   

  Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!  I will certainly let you know when I receive the

  papers.

   

  Always the best,

  Willa

   

  HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
  Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
  Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
  www.hunterbear.org  (social justice)

   

  See the new expanded/updated edition of my "ORGANIZER'S
  BOOK." It's the inside story of the rise of the massive Jackson
  Movement -- careful grassroots organizing, bloody repression, sell-out 
  and more.  It also covers other organizing campaigns of mine through
   the decades since Mississippi. It's replete with grass-roots organizing
  examples and "lessons."  And it has my new 10,000 word 
  introduction.  Among a myriad of positive comments and reviews:
   ". . .a local activist's important account of the deleterious effects
  the involvement  of national organizations can have on indigenous
  protest movements."  (Historian David Garrow.)
  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

   

  See the related:  http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

   

  Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
  http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm