Elliott Ricehill -- a great warrior, Native mink-skinners, and "little" struggles can mean Big Things

Elliott Ricehill -- a great warrior, Native mink-skinners, and "little" struggles can mean Big Things

Well, it is December -- and barely above zero outside to which we'll be going shortly to sprinkle ice melt.  (At least this isn't North Dakota where winter is somewhat more challenging. )

And, since it is December, there are personal struggle dates that I always remember.  On December 12, 1962, my wife, Eldri, and myself, and four Black Tougaloo College students, picketed in front of the Woolworth store in down-town Jackson, Mississippi. This, probably the first civil rights picket in the history of the Magnolia state's capital city, launched the historic, successful Jackson Boycott which in turn grew into the massive and non-violent Jackson Movement some months later.  Our picket occurred on the coldest day of that year, the sidewalks were sparse people-wise, and between 75 and 100 of Jackson's white police descended upon us forthwith, arresting us for "obstructing the sidewalk." The horde of cops blocked all traffic, we went off to jail, and the boycott was launched.

I also remember the migrant Algonquin Indian mink skinners' struggle for social justice which we carefully organized in the late summer and fall of 1977 in Ontario County, New York, and which culminated in a successful strike on December 12 of that year.

Our old friend and companero, Elliott Ricehill, a Winnebago Indian, was a very key player in that campaign.  He's gone now into the Spirit World, but he lives on always in the rich memories of a great many indeed.

ELLIOTT RICEHILL, WARRIOR [HUNTER GRAY  JUNE 22, 2006]

In an era where all too many ostensible activists talk and write glibly
about "organizing" and too few actually do it, it's not easy to see yet one
more of the Real Tribe pass into the Fog and beyond.  When my phone rang
yesterday, I was -- in the fashion of my late Native father [who
consistently refused to travel via air] -- not inclined to answer it.  But,
of course, I did.

It was Muriel Ricehill [Sisseton Sioux], calling from Wisconsin.  Her voice
slightly broken, she said, "I have very sad news, John.  Elliott has died."

And Muriel and I talked for a long, long time.  She and Elliott Ricehill,
Ho-Chunk [aka Winnebago], had been married since 1977.  They made up a great
and courageous team indeed -- and both have been extremely close components
of our family.

I met Elliott first in the early spring of '74 -- in Iowa State Penitentiary
into which he'd been sentenced to 70 years or so on a dubious charge five
years before.  A prof at the University of Iowa -- and the UI's counselor
for the Native students -- I was beginning the first of several years and
countless visits down to the institution at Fort Madison [90 miles from Iowa
City] with a group of Native and Chicano and Anglo students to lend support
to the incipient and subsequently quite enduringly successful American
Indian/Chicano Cultural Center.  At that first meeting with our group,
Elliott, who was the spearhead of this organizing effort, was sitting in the
front row and I in the back.  Suddenly, he turned around and looked directly
at me and I at him.  From that point on, we were staunch friends and
consistent allies -- and family members.  Soon enough, Elliott and I began
referring to each other as "brother."

We launched an effort to free Elliott -- and several others as well.  These
efforts continued, broadening, and some Native prisoners were subsequently
paroled.  The Cultural Center grew in influence and I wound up -- under the
aegis of a nearby community college -- teaching Native history and
contemporary Indian issues at the prison.  [Some genuinely interested prison
officials wound up faithfully attending.]  But, even though the Iowa State
Parole Board eventually moved to parole Elliott, that move was blocked by
the Work Release Committee -- under whose auspices most parolees were
placed -- and its red-neck chairman, a prison guard who hated Elliott.

In December of '76, I left University of Iowa for upstate New York and a key
social justice post with the Rochester Catholic Diocese.  I saw Elliott at
the prison just before we left -- and assured him [we were standing in the
prison yard, the sky was dark, and snow spitting] -- that I had a Plan that
would get him out.  He seemed understandably pessimistic and his basic
optimism had to fight to show through.

As soon as we arrived at Rochester, I began to put my [creative, if I say so
myself] plan into action -- Interstate Parole.  With the strong backing of
an always-ally, Monsignor George Cocuzzi [the Vatican-trained canon lawyer
in the Diocese], and with the support of Mario Cuomo, then NY Secretary of
State, Elliott was paroled directly from Iowa to New York [bypassing the
troll-like Work Release Committee of the Hawkeye State].  Elliott married
Muriel, a great person of strength in her own right [who had visited him
consistently at the prison] and they came to New York.

We immediately tackled the extraordinarily repressive and totally resistant
[including armed guards] Bennett Mink Ranch in which migratory Algonquins
from Ontario and Quebec worked under peonage conditions reminiscent of
closed Deep South plantations.  We all soundly defeated Bennett et al. [A
short account and analysis of this great and fascinating saga immediately
follows.]

And we went on to many other campaigns together including several in the
most racist North Dakota settings.

When I was almost dead a number of times in 2003 and 2004 via systemic
lupus, Elliott was then in the Ho-Chunk country in southeastern Wisconsin
[he had a comparable base as well with that portion of his Nation that is
also located in eastern Nebraska]. He maintained important contact with me
at many critical points as I brushed the Fog.  A leader in the Native
American Church [sacramental peyote], he quickly prepared the ground for me
should I ever wish to avail myself of the services of the Church here in
Idaho [and I may very well do so.]

Now Elliott has gone off to his Creator Grandfather.  We shall always be in
very close contact with Muriel.  And he, himself, will never be far.

Some members of our group here cried when we learned of Elliott's passing.
I didn't [because I don't] but my great sadness is bone-deep.  John [Beba]
has just written, ". . .Elliott was a good uncle of mine, teaching me to
play pool and fold laundry--a prison skill?"  And Peter [Mack] in a
comparable communication said, " That is sad news. He took me and Beba to
play pool, and he bought us
our first chess set, and he drove 80 mph in his Mustang."

Now that's our Family:  Elliott and Muriel and All -- Now and Forever.

Here is the short piece on our Algonquin War Against Bennett and Legions.  I
have also provided a Link to a much longer, detailed piece of mine.]

Quantitative -- And Other Measures -- In Gauging Organizing Success    [The
Algonquins at Bennett's Camp]  [HG]

This is a  very substantially expanded version of something I posted several
weeks ago on a list where a dispute over success-measured-by-stats flared
briefly.  This can be a significant -- and volatile -- issue for organizers.
It's certainly worth some comment.

Every single "people's struggle" is significant, important -- to the "people
of the fewest alternatives" who are involved and affected and to the Great
Cause.  Numbers are very meaningful, certainly, but there are other
dimensions that transcend a purely quantitative measure   -- among them,
seeds sown and ripples of constructive influence that can travel far beyond
the momentary ken of the organizers and their constituency.  I've been
privileged by History to play a role in a good many grassroots organizing
campaigns.  One was the historic Jackson Movement  -- thousands and
thousands and thousands, massive, internationally known, cracked Jackson
wide-open and sent  deep cracks across the rest of Mississippi and into
other parts of the Deep South.

But another  was cracking the closed, heavily guarded and extremely
exploitative feudal  mink ranch of Lester Bennett in Ontario County, New
York.

During this period, I was director of the Office of Human Development -- the
social justice arm -- of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester, New York:
12 up-state  counties.  During my stormy -- embattled -- tenure as OHD
director, we accomplished many solid and genuinely activist community
organizing things.  Eventually, I was fired by the Bishop for
"insubordination" -- stemming from our vigorously pushing socialization of
the people-gouging Rochester Gas and Electric whose board chairman was the
largest single contributor to the Diocese.  Things relating to all of this
are on our large website.  http://www.hunterbear.org/rochester.htm

But back to Bennett and his feudal set-up which exploited a primarily Native
migrant work force from Canada [western Quebec and eastern Ontario -- from
such poverty-stricken reserves as Maniwaki and Grand Isle Victoria.] This
brutal arrangement had gone on for 35 years without protest from any
direction.  The almost completely non-English speaking Algonquins were
brought down each season and virtually held hostage in Bennett's camp.
Taken occasionally to a small town to buy groceries [at a store owned by
Bennett], they were always accompanied  by armed guards.  Their pay was low,
they were flagrantly cheated -- and health and safety conditions were
hideous.

Among other things, well before the fur season got underway and the bulk of
the migrant Indians arrived, I sketched Bennett's massive layout from a
wooded ridge far above his plantation -- and, with binoculars, studied all
of  its basic details. [Reconnaissance is an old forte of mine.]

I saw the several lines of extraordinarily flimsy cabin-shacks used by the
Indians. We knew there had been lethal fires at some -- and frequent
pneumonia stemming from the icy winds of the Lake Ontario winters.

I carefully developed The Plan.  The Trap.

So then, in due course, as the mink season of 1977 got underway,  I pursued
some extremely creative techniques. One of these included,  using very early
on, a friendly cooperative migrant program [to which our OHD office
channeled money] to place a key operative of ours-- an old Winnebago friend
of mine fresh from Iowa -- Elliott Ricehill -- into Bennett's set-up as an
"alcohol counselor" at no cost to Bennett. This was a first -- since no
outsiders had ever been permitted therein. But alcohol was making its way
surreptitiously into the massive compound -- probably via some of Bennett's
regular employees -- and the old man was worried about his mink skinners'
"steady hands on Monday morning."

Our inside man immediately feigned a love affair with Bennett's "control
person" -- an opportunistic [and totally Machiavellian] Algonquin woman, a
classic Apple, who was very well paid by Bennett to help manage the captive
work force.  She fell for my friend's charm and wiles -- and he
subsequently gathered invaluable information which we received each evening.
[My Winnebago buddy and his  wife, Muriel, a Sisseton Sioux, were staying at
our home at Rochester during their relocation period from Iowa -- so we met
literally at our dinner table.]

Now, with a growing list of potential Algonquin leaders and with maps to
their respective cabin/shacks, I crept onto the plantation  via thick woods
and  under heavily barbed wire at night, again and again --  successfully
avoiding  the armed guards and dogs.  They never even sensed me.  A young
Algonquin who knew English regularly  met and assisted me in translation.

Much happened.

In due course,  very ably assisted by one of our most activist young
staffers [Tim McGowan] and by our  very cunning inside agent, we organized the slightly
more than 100 non-English speaking Algonquin Indian workers plus their
families into a highly successful short strike -- and, subsequently,
substantial related actions involving formal health and labor complaints and
court action.  And those were also quite successful.

Bennett et al. were taken completely by surprise! The "control woman" was
crushed. And, in the middle of this, Bennett's daughter, Rowena, 65, who had
long wanted a red convertible car, absconded to Florida with some of his
considerable money.

The speed with which this long repressed work force of Canadian migrant
Native people developed extremely effective and courageous local
leadership -- much of this including their very strong wives --  speaks
volumes about the great capabilities of the human grassroots in every
setting and in every time.

This cracked and  completely opened Bennett's plantation system: one of the
three largest mink ranches in the U.S. [more than 60,000 mink.] We then
formally met with the other mink ranchers in the region -- who used migrants
of various ethnic backgrounds, including some Indians -- and who immediately
met our demands.

Back in Canada, following that unexpectedly turbulent season, a number of
the Algonquins from the Bennett struggle became very effective labor and
Native rights activists in western Quebec and eastern Ontario. Many are still at it
today. The courageous Algonquin struggle at Bennett's had a very
significantly inspiring impact on Native people throughout upstate New York.
[Elliott and Muriel made several subsequent trips to the relatively remote
Algonquin reserves in Ontario and Quebec.]

[In an interesting postscript, I later gave a long social justice
presentation to a large class of incipient priests at St. Bernard's Seminary
at Rochester.  The class, social theology, was taught by my good friend,
Professor Joe Torma [now at Walsh University, Ohio.] The gathering was
fascinated by the Bennett account -- but some were disturbed at  our
deception vis-a-vis the Algonquin control woman.  At the end of my
presentation, Joe polled the class.  About two-thirds felt we were justified
under the circumstances.]

For a discussion of the Bennett  struggle saga, see our website at
http://www.hunterbear.org/great_algonquin_freedom_campaign.htm

The famous  Mine-Mill "Salt of the Earth Strike" -- October, 1950 to
January, 1952, Hanover, New Mexico, Empire Zinc -- involved 128 workers.
Its impact on New Mexico was tremendous and, through the extraordinarily
fine film, it affected people all over the world [and still has a
significant impact today.] BTW, if you haven't yet seen the excellent and
enduring "Salt of the Earth", do so!  It was officially blacklisted for
years but widely shown outside of movie houses. Now available on video
cassette, it was recently chosen by the Library of Congress as one of the
100 most important films ever made in the United States.

Every social justice fight -- "big" or "small" -- is well worth it from many
rich and enduring perspectives.  Not the least of these is what the
organizers themselves learn for the battles ahead and beyond.

Fraternally -  Hunter Bear

_________________________________________________________________________________

Hunter,I want you to know that my thoughts are with you during your time of
sadness.Joe hill once said don't mourn, organize. I do agree that we need to
organize like hell.Unlike hills statement, I think it is ok to mourn. Be
Asured that you have friends on this list who are more then glad to be with
you during your  time of sadness.one of the reasons I am an anticapitalist is
because I believe in sharing;that includes sharing good times with our friends
and sad times.
  I just want to let you know that I always enjoy your posts, whenever I read
them I am taken to a place of calmness where the worries of the world are
furthest from my mind,and for that I want to thank you.hope you feeling better
soon.
  Aaron Doncaster 

________________________________________________________________________________
 

Dear Mr. Salter,
Please accept my deepest sympathy on the death of your good friend ,
Elliott Ricehill . It sounds as if he was a great activist like yourself. 
You have certainly fought a good fight for the past four decades .
Thanks for sharing it .
WWW, 
Mary Ann [Mary Ann Hall Winters] 
______________________________________________________________________________
  

Sad news, but a great struggle.

Peace,
David [McReynolds]
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq / 
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO


Check out our massive social justice website
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And this book is also an activist's how-to manual: 
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The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
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