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Native American Oral Histories
Gi-gikinomaage-min Project
Interview: James Wagner "Wag" Wheeler
Interviewer: Belinda Bardwell and Levi Rickert
Date: April 23, 2015
[ [Lin]
This is an interview with Wag Wheeler on April twenty-third at one forty
downtown Grand Rapids in the--
[Levi]
Riverview Center Office Building.
[Lin]
I'm Belinda Bardwell and this is Levi Rickert. This is an interview. Oral history
interview. Oral record of the urban Native experience of the Grand Valley State
University Gi-gikinomaage-min Defend Our History Project, Unlock Our Spirit
Project.
[Whispers: Put that thing on.]
[Lin]
Can we have you introduce yourself and spell your name?
[Wag]
James Wagner Wheeler. Wag Wheeler for short. W-A-G The last name is W-HE-E-L-E-R.
[Lin]
[INAUDIBLE] Can you tell me a little about where you were born?
[Wag]
I was born in [INAUDIBLE] Oklahoma in nineteen thirty-five.
[Lin]
Oklahoma?
[Wag]
Mhm.
[Lin]
So, when did you come, or move, or trans-locate to Grand Rapids?
[Wag]
I came here nineteen seventy-two. I had a fellowship at the University of
Michigan. To work on a master's degree in Public Administration. That was
sponsored by the National Association of Public Administrators. Their minority
division. And I got a scholarship to come finish my master's degree at the
University of Michigan.
[Lin]
Okay. Are you affiliated with a tribe?
[Wag]
I am Cherokee from Oklahoma. Eastern Cherokee.
[Lin]
Okay. How would you describe yourself concerning your ethnicity or your
identity?
�[Wag]
[Wag]
I like to say I'm Native American. I was not brought up as Native American. I was
born during the time when they used Black, White, or Other. And we were always
Other on our birth certificates, and licences, and all that kind of thing.
So, I'd always identified as white with Native American blood. Until I realized how
twisted that was, as opposed to being Native American blood. Or Native
American with white blood.
[Lin]
So describe your connection with the Grand Rapids area.
[Wag]
When I was at the University of Michigan [Ahem, excuse me] in nineteen
seventy-two there was a student over there from Grand Rapids her name was
Chet [INAUDIBLE]. I was working at the university while I was going to school in
an office called the Opportunity Office. And the purpose of that was to help
Native Americans and other minority students make the transition from high
school to college. Particularly, the kids that came from rural areas. I went to work
there with the help of a guy that I worked with in Oklahoma, by the name of Tony
Genia from Charlevoix. While I was there I met Chet Eagleman, he came into the
office I think to talk about some financial aid or something, I don't remember
exactly. I had known Chet, I had knew about him, because there is a college in
Oklahoma called Bacone, it's basically an Indian College in Muskogee,
Oklahoma. I had been up there playing ball and refereeing and all that. I had met
him in the crowd or something. I just remembered the name. So, Chet came into
the office and we got to be pretty good friends. And he told me that they had this
agency over here, Grand Rapids Inter-tribal Council. That had been established I
think in nineteen seventy-one or seventy-two. They had a director of the agency
with the name of [Short interruption] Eddie White Pigeon. But he was leaving,
and Chet asked if I was interested in maybe coming to work after I was got
through with my program. The program that I was in was a two-year program.
[background noise] So, I told him yes, that I would consider it. I was in the
process of getting a divorce from my wife in Oklahoma. When we talked further, I
told Chet, I would like to apply for the position. I just wanna finish school and I
would give him one or two years, but I wanted to do some traveling and some
research on the Cherokee people. So, when I finished school I came over and
was interviewed for the executive directors position. They assigned me, or
appointed me. I think that was in seventy-five somewhere around May or June. I
can't remember exactly what the date was. So, I became quite familiar with
Michigan and Grand Rapids. At that time, they had-- there was quite a
controversy going on throughout the country with Native and non-Native people.
Particularly white people there was a take over a place in South Dakota called
Wounded Knee, South Dakota. There were several people from Grand Rapids
that were in that movement. Which was initiated by the American Indian
Movement. I got real familiar with that and got caught up in that type of situation.
At the time there used to be a bar on Bridge Street called Cat's Paw and it was a
�Native American bar, basically.
[Wag]
I was here probably about a month or so and there was a bunch of Native people
in the bar, got into a fight, and the police were called in and there was a whole lot
of clubbing and slapping around and that type of thing. I think they arrested four
people that they were charging with disturbing the peace. I don't remember what
the charges were, but it was something to do with disturbing the peace and drunk
and disorderly, and all kinds of things. That was my first encounter with the
Grand Rapids Police and the city basically. From there I just got very familiar with
it. Hired some people to help us put some programs together and start building
the agency. At that point in time the agency had a grant from Office of Native
American Programs and the grant was for forty thousand dollars, and it was to
build an Indian center and to hire some staff. Develop some programs, national
programs, state programs, and county programs. That type of thing.
[Lin]
You mentioned you wanted to do some research on your Cherokee heritage,
were you able to do that?
[Wag]
No.
[Lin]
No?
[Wag]
No. I still haveta'. I met people that were familiar with the Cherokee movement.
My people were in Tennessee, Georgia, and Kentucky. Actually my ancestors
are the ones that had gone to Jackson, President Jackson, to try to stop the
removal of our people from the southeastern part of the country and into
Oklahoma. They met with President Jackson, he denied that they could stay in
Georgia, the Cherokee people, and the other tribes that were there. They signed
the treaty back then, as well as today, I think they had the Cherokee blood ball.
Which meant that if you did something that crippled or hurt the rest of the people
you signed your own death sentence. Out of five of my ancestors, when they
went back to Oklahoma there were four of them that were killed for signing that
treaty. Consequently they did move our people. So my people, my ancestors, left
that part of the country and moved down to Arkansas and Oklahoma basically
before the Trail of Tears and the rest of the people came on through the Trail of
Tears, basically.
[Lin]
So you graduated from Michigan.
[Wag]
Uh-huh.
[Lin]
What was your experience like there being Native? Or--
�[Wag]
[Wag]
It was--[Laughter] Well, [Clears Throat] When I was there, there was four of us.
Twenty Juniors--no. Paul Johnson who was an ex-football player there.
Paul was a Chippewa from Saginaw, and Tony Genia who was an Ottawa from
Charlevoix. Jim Ken Cannon was there and his brother John. They were from
North Port, that area. Together, the five or six of us--I think there was--George,
uh, Charles Pamp, Moose Pamp was over there. While he wasn't going to
school, he was working there in the school helping with us. So, we petitioned the
university to develop a Native American Indian Student Association. So, we
founded the Native American Student Association. There was a guy that worked
for the university by the name of George Goodman. Goodman. Goodman.
George was the mayor of Ypsilanti. African American, a wonderful, wonderful
person. He was over the opportunity to program that I worked for. So he was one
person that really helped push through the Native American Association that we
had established. We'd set up a library and developed some Native American
programs with some professors that were over there. One professor was a guy
from Oklahoma by the name of McCormick, Charles. Well, Edward McCormick.
Another one was a fella by the name of Felt. Professor Felt. I don't remember
what his first name was. But he was quite well known throughout the university
world for developing social--I think some social programs with the university and
things of that nature. So he was very supportive of us gettin' in there and it
became quite successful, we helped a lot of students. We had a lot of students
[Levi]
What was the time frame. The early nineteen seventies?
[Wag]
I was there from seventy-two to seventy-five. So that was probably seventythree.
[Levi]
Kay
[Wag]
The first year I was there. Because Tony Genia [Clears throat] in the two-year
program he had already been there a year, and he was already there when we
did all that. So, he left after I graduated the first year. So, it would have had to
been seventy-three.
[Levi]
We've had some Genia's here in Grand Rapids Hunter Genia, who you know.
[Wag]
Yeah.
[Levi]
Tony's his uncle? He talk about that connection?
[Wag]
Tony is relativity young. But I don't think they're real close realities.
[Levi]
Okay.
�[Wag]
[Levi]
I never really could find out from Hunter's mother.
Doris [INAUDIBLE]
[Wag]
I never really did figure out how they were related to him. But interestingly Tony
Genia from Charlevoix. Tony Genia from here.
[Levi]
Mm hm.
[Wag]
But then the program developed and I left over there, and I think it's still going.
[INAUDIBLE]
[Lin]
So, you grew up in Oklahoma?
[Wag]
I grew up in Oklahoma.
[Lin]
Went to high school there?
[Wag]
Yes.
[Lin]
Anything striking from your high school memories?
[Wag]
Yeah, I couldn't speak our language in high school. Couldn't speak our language
in school at all. Which it didn't bother me too much, because we didn't speak it at
home. I never learned the language. My parents were brought up in it's better not
to show. [INAUDIBLE] To try to assimilate into the majority of society. Had uncles
that went to mission school. My mother's brothers went to mission school. My
dad was an only child. My mother was one of fifteen. So, I had my uncles and
aunts to play with quite a bit. We always celebrated different types of, we didn't
call it the ghost supper back then, but it was always around the time of
Thanksgiving. 'Cause that's a harvest time as you know. With my mother's big
family. We celebrated it with her family more so than just by ourselves. I have
three sisters and a brother. Brother and sister are old and two sisters younger.
[Levi]
So separate from Thanksgiving there was a dinner celebration. Similar to what
you see in Michigan. We call them ghost suppers.
[Wag]
Yeah, yeah. It was similar to them. I can't remember what they're called. I don't
remember. But it was all right there, about the same time.
[Levi]
It was honoring the harvest and honoring the ancestors?
[Wag]
Yes. The spirits that are on their final trip. That type of thing, final passage.
�[Lin]
[Clears throat] Did you have friends or other people in your high school or
growing up that were Native?
[Wag]
Oh yeah. Yeah. And what I meant to say is, I've seen kids get slapped for
speaking to each other in the language. And screamed at: "You can't say that.
You can't say those dirty words. That dirty language." Or whatever they called it,
you know. What bothered me, I had real good friends that'd get slapped. Back
then you couldn't do anything. Today, you'd get fired. But back then you just took
it and that was it.
[Lin]
So this was a public school?
[Wag]
Yes.
[Levi]
Now, speak to the difference, Wag, where you grew up in Oklahoma. Now, I
understand they don't have reservations, per se, they have tribal lands. Is that
correct?
[Wag]
Mhm.
[Levi]
And where you grew up, was it more of a rural area? Or urban?
[Wag]
It was more of a rural. The city I grew up in was the county seat of Sequoyah
County.
[Levi]
Okay.
[Wag]
It's right below Adair county, which is heavily populated by natives, and Cherokee
County, which is where the center of the Cherokee nation was. It is the
furthermost county, Cherokee County, in Oklahoma. It's right bordered by the
Arkansas river to the south. Across the river is Choctaw County, and to the
northeast or northwest is Creek County, and the southwest is Choc--
[Levi]
Chickasaw, isn't it?
[Wag]
Chickasaw
[Levi]
Chickasaw.
[Wag]
Creeks and Shawnees and all that throughout that whole--You know, you've
been there before--And, we were governed by the laws of the state, you know
here it's the U.S. Marshals. But back there the land--We call it the reservation,
well the reservation is made up of about twelve or thirteen counties.
The county government takes care of the county and the city government take
[Wag]
�care of the cities. The state government, you know, were under the auspices of
all those laws. Whereas opposed here the people have some of their own judges
and own law enforcement and backing of the U.S. Marshals and that type of
thing.
[Levi]
What Indian country are you--Cherokee, okay.
[Wag]
Yep.
[Levi]
You know, tribal police and…
[Wag]
Well, we didn't have any tribal police. They have the now.
[Levi]
They do now. Yes.
[Wag]
They do have them now. But that came after--
[Levi]
Well, that's interesting.
[Wag]
They came after I left.
[Levi]
Okay.
[Lin]
So your experience in public high school in Oklahoma, and then your college
experience in Michigan--
[Wag]
Well,I went to college in Oklahoma also.
[Lin]
Was there a difference in shifting from the public school atmosphere to the
college there to the University of Michigan.
[Wag]
From the college there to the University of Michigan that's quite a difference. Ann
Arbor is a very, very conservative community. Very conservative. The university
is very, very liberal. So, you can imagine what that created in that community.
Where I grew up it was somewhat conservative. Not a lot of liberal activity there.
We have a democratic party. [Laughs] But, I don't know if it was in charge of my
time in school. But, it was very different. I have to tell you a story. When I [clears
throat] started enrolling at the University of Michigan, now I'm from Oklahoma,
I'm close to forty years old, thirty seven years old at that time. My concern, our
concern back there with Marijuana, or as we called it local weed, our concern
was our cows eating it because they would eat the local weed and they'd walk
into fences and into trees. [Chuckles from group]
So, my grandfather's like: "Go out there into the pasture and cut up all that local
weed. Get rid of that local weed. Pile it over there and burn it. That was my
[Wag]
�experience with it. Gay people were people that were really happy. Okay? So, if
you said that someone was really gay, that means they are really laughing and
responsive, or something like that. Enrolling at the University of Michigan, we're
in line and there's probably two thousand kids ahead of me. Every five or ten
steps there would be people passing out brochures. Women's Liberation
Movement, the African-Americans, the Society for Democratic Society brochures,
Gay Society. I'm taking all these brochures--[Levi Laughing] reading these
brochures and I get to the point on the gay where it talks about homosexuality.
Now, I'm from Oklahoma. Nobody at Michigan [INAUDIBLE] sent me a line. First
thing I do is I put those things in my coat. So nobody can see me reading 'em,
because I am so embarrassed-- [INAUDIBLE] [Laughter from Levi and Wag]
Peak at it every so often. But, that was my experience when I came up here.
Four letter words in class, the 'F' word was common from our professors.
Absolutely common [Phone vibrating in background] that was something I was
never used to. It was quite an experience for an old guy from conservative
Oklahoma. [Laughter] The University of Michigan [INAUDIBLE] It was quite an
experience. There was quite a bit of adjusting I had to do. [INAUDIBLE] It was a
good time, I enjoyed it.
[Lin]
So, you started the Native American Student Association?
[Wag]
Association.
[Lin]
So what type of activities did you do or create while you were there? Because
you created NASA, correct?
[Wag]
Yes.
[Lin]
So what are some of the first things you did?
[Wag]
The first thing we did, we brought in books. They gave us a room over there to
set up a library of Native American books. There were very few there. There was
a lot of new writers. Vine Deloria, comes to mind, had written several books.
Other people had written quite a few books. We brought them in because a lot of
kids that were there, Native kids, wanted to do some papers on Native
Americans. So there wasn't a whole lot of research there, if there was it was very
twisted. That's one of the first things, we brought in some speakers. We brought
in Angela Davis. I don't know if you know who that is. Angela Davis was a activist
from California that was very supportive of the liberation army. The Black
Panthers she was very supportive of the Black Panthers, and all of that. So, it
was very controversial.
We had a lot of kids showed up for her talk. But we brought in quite a few
speakers. We brought in Vine Deloria, Angela Davis, I think there are two-three
other people that we brought in from around the country. I can't think of it now,
[Wag]
�who they were. That's what we'd do, we'd bring in speakers and started a pow
wow over there. They had had the pow wow a year before, that was university
sponsored. So, I helped work on the pow wow that year along with Paul Johnson
and Moose Pamp, and some other people. Tony Genia, and Jim Kin Cannon and
his brother John. Several people, some from Grand Rapids. I think that there
were some [INAUDIBLE] from Mt. Pleasant. I can't remember all the rest of them,
but we had quite a few students.
[Lin]
Did you think that it was gonna last?
[Wag]
Yeah we did. Yeah we did. I thought that most of the world was Haitians, you
know that were developed back then that were gonna last. But I think with the
development of the casinos, I think the federal government and county
government, and all that used that to say that you got your own money.
[INAUDIBLE] We all make so much from the casinos. [Laughter]
[Lin]
So does it make you feel good that that's still…
[Wag]
It does…
[Lin]
[INAUDIBLE]
[Wag]
I had a girl come over here from university one time. I used to collect Native
American baskets. Quill boxes--and [INAUDIBLE] baskets. And, I picked up a
hamper from a guy that was probably a twenty-six inch, twenty-seven inch
hamper. That was close to a hundred years old. I know the person that bought it
paid fifteen dollars for it because it had the price in the lid. It came Petoskey, and
the girl came over and her last name was [pause] was...I can't pronounce it...I
was gonna say McDonald, but that wasn't...Maldonado ...
[Lin]
[INAUDIBLE]
[Wag]
I can't remember.There are some Maldonado's from down and around here I
think. She came over, found out that I had these baskets. And, she came over to
buy it, because they were just starting the casino, I think. Just building a casino in
Petoskey. [Clears throat] And, they were having an exhibit up there with some of
the artwork. She came over and I asked her about it, what they were going to do
with it, and all that. She said that they were trying to get some of the older
artwork and put it there. So instead of selling it to her, I gave her four or five
baskets that came from up there.
They really appreciated it because they hadn't had any money back then. As far
as I know, it's still in their museum. Unless, she took it and sold it someplace.
[Laughter] Put it in her house, I don't know. I don't know why I'm jokin' 'bout that. I
think she was a law student.
[Wag]
�[Lin]
Allie.
[Levi]
Mhm.
[Wag]
What's her name?
[Lin]
Allie Maldonado.
[Wag]
Yes, that's who it was.
[Lin]
She's our current judge. Chief Judge.
[Wag]
In Petoskey?
[Levi]
For Little Traverse.
[Lin]
For Little Traverse.
[Levi]
Bay Bands.
[Wag]
No kidding.
[Levi]
What year would that have been back when the casino would have started? Was
it ninety...?
[Wag]
It just started when she was a senior.
[Levi]
[INAUDIBLE] Ninety-seven that they started in Petoskey.
[Lin]
The first one? Probably.
[Levi]
Yeah, right around there. I think. The bowling alley. [Laughter]
[Lin]
Yeah, the bowling alley.
[Wag]
Yeah. Yeah she--I remember she came in and said I am from the Native
American Student Association--University of Michigan. She said: "Do you know
what that is?" I said, "I know very well what that is."
I told her that I was once there and helped founded it. She was surprised at that
because she did't know that, and I told her the story that [clears throat] Where I
lived...I lived in Solane, in a trailer park. On a state road that goes into Ann Arbor
from Solane that I used to go into the university everyday. And there's a small
airport out there that had some airplanes, you know the planes had the letters N-
[Wag]
�A-S-A. So…
[Levi]
[Laughter]
[Lin]
[Laughter]
[Wag]
So, we'd get those two and take them out there. And say: "You need to come up
here, we have rolling planes." [Laughter]
[Levi]
[Laughter] That's funny.
[Wag]
[Laughter] And kids really believed that until we got there. We can fly anywhere
you want to go. We have our own airplanes here. [Laughter]
[Levi]
That's good Indian humor. [Laughter]
[Lin]
[Clears throat] So, after you finished with an NPA, you went to the Inter-tribal
Council of Grand Rapids.
[Wag]
Yes.
[Lin]
You got that forty-thousand dollar grant.
[Wag]
Well, they had that. It was in existence when I came.
[Lin]
Oh. So what were some of the programs or specific things you did in the
community.
[Wag]
They just had some, really, advocacy programs. It wasn't anything that they
actually had [Laughter] Oh, man. [Laughter] They were trying to develop some
programs. At that point in time there was an agency here in town called The Owl-Indian Outreach. It was a substance abuse program, three or four blocks...a
couple of blocks...from our agency. So, they had that for the community. Then
there was a young man who worked for the agency by the name of Fred Chivis. I
think Fred Jr. and he was like an employee...Employment Specialist. So, he
would help people find jobs in the community. That's basically all they had--If I
remember right.
[Wag]
What I do remember is, I was here just about probably two months and the wife
of one of my board members kept coming in the office and screaming at
employees that I had, and they were mostly volunteers. So, I went to her
husband and I said: "You need to keep her out of there. And if you don't, I will.
'Cause I'm not gonna have people come in and scream at my employees." His
response was: "She talks too much." and I said: "Well, she can't do it here." So,
�he didn't do anything. And the next couple days she was back in there. And I
said: "You will leave, and you will not come back until you call and make an
appointment to come back in here, or I will physically remove you." So, she left
and starting that night for about three months, I got phone calls starting about
midnight, every night. Absolutely, every night. The calls would come starting
about midnight, and would last until four and five o'clock in the morning.
[Levi]
Wow.
[Wag]
And when I answered the phone there was always the same tape or record or
whatever it was. There used to be a song about the B.I.A, and the corruption of
the B.I.A, and it referred to the people working for the B.I.A. And the song was
directed at me, how corrupt I was, and all of that. 'Course I couldn't do anything
about it, and I didn't know who it was. Well, after about three months--Well,
during that time… After about another month, when all that started. I'm looking at
all the books, and everything. And I knew they had a forty-thousand dollar grant.
They're paying their director ten-thousand dollars. They're paying their assistant
director I think...like eight-thousand dollars. They had some other expenses that
amounted to about fifteen to twenty thousand dollars. I don't remember now what
they were. And, they hadn't paid their income taxes. They'd had their withholding
taxes. So, I start asking around about, you know: "What are you doing with your
withholding taxes?" They didn't even know what I was talking about. So, I ended
up calling--I have an accounting background, I got that in Oklahoma before I
came to Michigan. So, I call Cincinnati, and I said: "I'm with Grand Rapids Intertribal Council, and we haven't been sending you our payments for the withholding
taxes." And they said: "We don't know who you are." And I said: "It's an agency,
we've got some employees, we've been withholding money (taxes) and not
sending it to you." She said: "I don't have any record of that. What it your 501 C-3
number?" Or, your business number. And, I said: "I don't know, I haven't seen it
signed here." So, she looked a little bit farther and said: "You're not even a legal
organization, you don't even have your 501 c-3." So, I say: "Okay, what do I have
to do?" and she talked to be a little bit, and they had been trying to get that, the
agency had been trying to get their 501 c-3. What they did when they put in the
application, they had a 501 capital 'c' 3. And she said the 'c' has to be a small
letter. And I said: "That's it?" And she said: "Yes." So, I said: "Okay." So, I filled
out the application and sent it back in, and probably about a week or ten days
she called and she said we got the application.
You're now legal. And, do you have any idea how much you owe the federal
government? And I said: "No, I don't. I'm trying to figure that out." Ended up
being they owed the feds about six thousand dollars. [Silence] [Chuckles] I told
her, I said: "We don't have the money to pay, ya. You're gonna have to give me
some time to do that." Well they were very gracious about it, and all that. So, I
was dealing with that. I was dealing with the board president's--not board
president--one of the board member's wives. Her family, his family they were
[Wag]
�taking shots at me every way you can take a shot at somebody. I finally found out
that one of the persons that was calling my apartment. So, I drove by his house.
He was standing in the door way. I got out of the car and started up there and
then he disappeared. I had a pretty bad reputation as a street fighter. That
followed me from Oklahoma. I knocked on the door several time. Went back, and
got back in the car. Came to the office and called the house. And, I don't know
who answered. I said: "I wanna talk to blah, blah, blah [clears throat] So, he
came on the phone and I said: "I know you're the one who is calling. I'm gonna
tell you right now, if I get one more call, one call, I don't care what time of day it
is, I don't care if it's a man, woman, child, I don't care. I am kicking your ass. Big
time, every time I see you. And that ended all the calls.[Chuckle] So then, I just
had the family to fight. [Laughter] And you can't imagine the stories that were in
the paper.
[Lin]
About the Inter-tribal Council? Or about you?
[Wag]
About me. About the Council. About how much money I was making.
[INAUDIBLE] Think they pay me, I think they payed me twelve thousand dollars
that year.
[Levi]
Hmph.
[Lin]
Hmph.
[Levi]
Let's talk about you running the Indian--The Grand Rapids Inter-tribal Council.
Talk about the climate. With the shift, like in nineteen seventy-eight came the
American Indian Freedom--
[Wag]
[INAUDIBLE]
[Levi]
--Act. President Carter signed it. All of a sudden Indians could celebrate, practice
their ceremonial practices. Talk about what happened. Like with the drumming or
anything else that happened.
[Wag]
Well, we were trying to bring in drums, and trying to bring in some cultural
programs. Okay?
And if we brought a drum into the Inter-tribal I had people on my board, and
people in the community that would not--How you doin'
[Wag]
[Unknown Person]
How ya doin' stranger? [Wag] I've been good. That would come into the
agency. They wouldn't come into the agency if we had drum in there, if we had
feathers. They would not come in.
[Levi]
And these were?
�[Wag]
Native people.
[Levi]
Local American Indian, Native people.
[Wag]
Yes.
[Levi]
Who maybe because of their Christian belief system
[Wag]
Yes.
[Levi]
Would not…
[Wag]
Yes.
[Levi]
Even walk through the doors of Grand Rapids Inter-tribal…
[Wag]
Yes.
[Levi]
Because you wanted to bring the drum and the feathers.
[Wag]
And it wasn't just me. There were other people that wanted that. That's why we
were trying to do it.
[Levi]
Okay.
[Wag]
We had people in school. The drop out rate in public school was like seventy-five
percent, at that point in time--and probably still is... No, they wouldn't come in.
They wouldn't come in and I took all kinds of pot shots about it, you know.
Heathen. I was, which I probably am. [Laughter]
[Levi]
Practicing pagan religions, or whatever the set.
[Wag]
Yeah, practicing pagan religions. [Laughter]
[Levi]
So how long would you say that those sentiments continued?
[Wag]
Still do.
[Levi]
They still do.
[Unknown Person]
[Levi]
In fact, can I add something to that?
[Laughter] Why not.
�[Unknown Voice]
They're probably even stronger today than they were then.
[Levi]
Wow.
[Wag]
Yeah, they are.
[Unknown Voice]
Yeah they really are.
[Wag]
In many cases they are. Very strong today. Tell ya' a story about my--I met a girl
up here by the name of Linda Keyway. Well, at that time she was married, and I
had gone through a divorce. Linda Dixon was her name. We decided to get
married. I wanted to have a traditional Native American wedding as I could. I got
a hold of Eddie Banai, who is a holy man in Minnesota.
[Levi]
Mhm.
[Wag]
And Eddie started the Red School House there, along with some other people.
[Levi]
He's the author of the Mishomis book, Eddie Banai?
[Wag]
He is the author of the Mishomis book.
[Levi]
Correct, okay.
[Wag]
I ask Eddie if he would administer the vows for us. I got a brother and three
sisters. They've all been away from home, at different places in their lives.
Growing up and their jobs and things of that nature. My parents had always gone
to see them. I had been in Michigan for two years. My parents had never been up
here. So, I called them and told them I was getting married. Which my mother
was dead set against. She was against divorce. [Phone chiming in the
background] And I said: "I would really like for you to be here. You and my dad."
They're both Native people. Nobody is more Native than my dad. When they got
here, after about two or three months, when we got ready to get married.
The first thing my mother said to me when she got out of the car was: "What is
this Indian stuff you're doing?" [Crying]--Excuse me just a minute. [Clears throat]
That really hurts.
[Wag]
[Levi]
Wow. Church as soon as they married. Church after they married raised all us
kids in the Methodist church and she
[Wag]
[Clears throat] And I said to her: "Will you be here? But if you're not, I'm gonna do
this. And I'm okay with it if you're not. If you don't want to see me again. I'm okay
with that. But, I'd really love for you to be here." They did come and they enjoyed
�it. But I think she had a problem with it for a long time. She was brought up as a
Presbyterian which is just about as close to reform church as you can get. My
dad was brought up as a Methodist. She changed to the Methodist Church after
they married. Raised all of us kids in the Methodist Church. I heard all of the
hellfire and brimstone crap that all the rest of the people did. Had a real problem
with my parents not owning me. My dad was very supportive of me, and she
became very supportive of me. But that was a real trying time. Because not only
was I fighting people from this community, but I was fighting Grand Rapids Public
Schools, the county, the state, the feds, everybody. Because they didn't want
Indians to make any headway. They still don't. It got nasty, I mean it got really,
really nasty. And very, very trying on me. Because I didn't have much of support
anywhere. My second wife became an alcoholic, and we divorced. She got to kill
herself.
[Levi]
Damn.
[Wag]
But...
[Levi]
But the fights that you were having with… Let's just talk a little about with the
Grand Rapids Public Schools, or the county, the city. Were they fights for money,
funding for the Inter-tribal council. Were they fights… I know even today, and
we're in twenty fifteen, that this interview is taking place. But, sometimes we have
to fight for our very existence. 'Cause we are such a small number. When
compared to the total population. Talk about some of those fights.
[Wag]
Well, one of the biggest ones was with[clears throat] the public schools. It
became very apparent to me that our kids were dropping out of school. Falling
out, quitting, just forever. It became apparent that kids would go through school
until about seventh or eighth grade. And that's where they started. We found out
that in the seventh or eighth grade is when the kids were in, I think, their phys.
ed. classes. Where competition became very, very tough. And, these kids
seemed to have trouble with that competition.
[Levi]
The Native kids?
[Wag]
The Native kids. So they would just drop out of school. They would just quit
going. There's a building here in town, Lexington, where we ended up being
there. At the time I was here we operated out of West Side Apostle Church which
is at the corner of Straight and Bridge Street. But, there was a Native American
program at Lexington where they had some classes over there. I know that we
checked on them. I had a guy that I had hired, it was, I called it my Education
Director. He had a PhD. in Education. We found out that the two years prior to us
trying to help, or work with the schools they had enrolled twenty-two students the
first year not a kid earned a credit. They had enrolled fifteen kids the year that I'm
�talkin' about, and at that time nobody was earning any credits. So, I went to the
school, talked to the director of the education program. I said: "What do we need
to do? I've got people that can recruit students. Can we get some teachers?"
They said: "You recruit the students, we'll provide the teachers for ya'." Then I
said: "Okay". So, at the start of school [clears throat] I kept calling 'em 'bout two
or three days before school star--classes started, and said: "When are you gonna
get our teachers over here?"
[Levi]
So, no teachers?
[Wag]
No teachers. No teachers.
[Levi]
Wow.
[Wag]
And, we had a hundred and thirty-seven applications. Now, every one of those
applications amounted to, at that time, I think about, fourteen hundred dollars.
Monies at the public schools were good. We still didn't have any teachers. So, I
was sitting there and I got...something happened...I got really upset. So, I got the
applications and--I'm gonna use some curse words in here--I'm gonna use words
that I used with them.
[Lin]
Go ahead.
[Levi]
We've got good editors. [Laughter]
[Unknown person]
I'm sure it's something you never heard before, right? [Laughter]
[Wag]
So, I took those applications up there and I walked into, at the time, the
administration building was on the fifth floor. I walked into the fifth floor, this
young little white girl, receptionist was sitting there at the desk. And I said: "I
wanna see Phil Runkle(?)"
[Levi]
He was the superintendent of the schools.
[Wag]
He was the superintendent of the schools.
[Unknown person]
Yeah.
[Levi]
Yes.
[Wag]
And, she said: "He's in a meeting." I said: "I don't care where he is. I wanna see
him, and I wanna see 'im right now." And she said: "Well, I can't disturb 'im--" And
I said: "Let me tell you something honey-- [INAUDIBLE] put 'em down there.
�[Levi]
[Laughter]
[Wag]
Let me tell you something honey, if I don't see Phil Runkle(?) in two minutes, I'm
gonna tear this whole goddamn place up. Everything, I'm gonna break all the
windows, I'm gonna wreck this place. She got up--
[Unknown person]
And went and got Phil Runkle(?) [Laughter]
[Wag]
She went and got Jim--What was it...Farmer. Jim came out there. Well, he's the
one I'd been working with. Jim walked in, and he said [INAUDIBLE]-- I said: "You
son of a bitch. You stay away from me, or I'll knock your fucking head right off.
[Levi]
Wow.
[Wag]
Pardon the language. So, he backed off and I said: "I wanna see Phil Runkle(?)
or I'm gonna start." So, he called back, or one of them called back and Phil
Runkle(?)came out there and said: "Wag, what's going on?" I said: "You sons of
bitches have lied to me. I have a hundred and thirty-seven applications for kids,
that they'll be showing up in about two days. And, if I don't have some teachers
there Phil I'm--" and six other people came out with him. I said: "I'm gonna come
up here and throw your goddamn ass right out that fifth floor window. And there
is not a fucking swinging dick in here that can even slow me down." [Laughter]
"Gimme some teachers, right now, gimme some teachers! How many we need.
How many teachers we need over there."
[Unknown Person]
Just like that. Just like that...
[Wag]
Next day, I had five teachers over there.
[Levi]
Wow. What-What year would that have been, Wag?
[Wag]
Seventy-five.
[Levi]
Nineteen seventy-five?
[Wag]
Yup.
[Levi]
Okay. [Laughter] Good Ol' Phil nominated me for the Outstanding [Laughter] OOutstanding Statewide whatever it was--
[Unknown Person]
[Levi]
Do you blame him? [Laughter]
I'm joking. Wag, just for the record though, was there--were there--among those
five teachers were there any Native teachers in that group?
�[Wag]
My wife. [Laughter]
[Levi]
Your wife? Wow. That's it?
[Wag]
Yeah. Linda. They didn't have any teachers there. Well, they did have some.
[Levi]
Well, they had Janette Sinclair.
[Wag]
They had Janette Sinclair. But she was working for the regular education.
[Levi]
Okay.
[Wag]
Native education program. Janette was on the board, but she wasn't one of the
teachers there.
[Levi]
Okay.
[Wag]
They had my present wife. [INAUDIBLE]
[Levi]
Okay.
[Wag]
At least that's where I met her.
[Lin]
And who is your present wife?
[Wag]
Pardon?
[Lin]
Who is your present wife?
[Unknown Person]
[Wag]
Is that her real name?
Her name was--Her name was…
[Unknown Person]
[INAUDIBLE]
[Levi]
Sammy Wheeler
[Wag]
Sandy Whiteman.
[Levi]
Whiteman?
[Wag]
And I took some crap over that.
�[Levi]
From the Indians?
[Wag]
Yes.
[Unknown Person]
Because of her name.
[Wag]
Name. Yes. [Laughter]
[Wag]
I had people workin' in Inter-tribal that if white people came in there, they
wouldn't speak to them.
[Unknown Person]
[Wag]
[INAUDIBLE]
They wouldn't even wait on them. Tony, he was one of them. [Laughter] Tony!
Tony! Was one of them. She wouldn't even wait on them.
[Unknown Person] You know, what's funny about that. They resented that and they didn't
resent the white man's religion. [Laughter]
[Wag]
So, it went on and on. We did some good, we probably graduated better than
four hundred and somethin' students. So, over the course of the time I was there,
a lot of them went to college. Had some good people work for Inter-tribal. Your
mother [Laughs] Your mother was one that was good. She worked on our Indian
Child Welfare Department. Who made a lot of change at the state level. Through
her efforts and her bossin' Jonah Rayfields (?) office. A lot of changes.
[Lin]
Hm.
[Levi]
Talk about the connection that the Grand Rapids Inter-tribal Council may have
had with the American Indian Movement. A.I.M
[Wag]
Um, not much. I worked in Oklahoma with a group call Oklahoman's for Indian
Opportunity. It was started by...
[Levi]
Ladonna Harris.
[Wag]
Ladonna Harris, and a good friend of hers. Iola Hayden(?) O.I.O and the
American Indian Movement was really cross ways. I mean they just didn't like
one another. 'Course there wasn't a whole lotta people left of the American
Indian Movement back then. [Laughter] So, I was a little bit cautious, because I
had got involved with them, not totally involved with them. But when I was in the
University of Michigan, we had a lot of students that went to--
�[Levi]
[INAUDIBLE]
[Wag]
Washington.
[Levi]
Washington D.C. for the take over.
[Wag]
For the take over. The B.I.A. office is over there. We had a lot of students that
went. I didn't go. I didn't go, I had three young kids, and a wife in Oklahoma--er,
an ex-wife in Oklahoma. And, I thought: "I can't get in jail." [Chuckles]
[Levi]
So, that was November of nineteen seventy-two that that took place.
[Wag]
Yeah.
[Levi]
Yeah.
[Wag]
Well, it was right after that too.
[Levi]
Okay.
[Wag]
Cause that's when they really got in there and took over everything. We had
Wounded Knee, South Dakota. We have people from here that flew out to South
Dakota to deliver supplies. We had people that--
[Levi]
Now, was that Native or Non-Native.
[Wag]
There was no Native that did the flying.
[Levi]
That did the flying.
[Wag]
But there was Native that helped--
[Unknown Person]
There were some non-Natives that came out too.
[Levi]
But, what type of supplies did they send?
[Wag]
I think there was food, not any ammunition, I don't think. No ammunition. But, I
think it was food.
[Levi]
Food, blankets, clothing--
[Wag]
Yeah things like that.
[Unknown Person]
Water.
�[Wag]
And water, yeah.
[Levi]
Would you say that the Grand Rapids Inter-tribal Council was kind of a convener
that they collected these items, these supplies?
[Wag]
Uh, we didn't have--
[Levi]
Or was it separate from the Grand Rapids Inter-tribal Council?
[Wag]
It was separate from that, but I think the Odawa(?)Outreach did, they had a
building down on Turner street.
[Levi]
Kay.
[Wag]
Right behind where Sullivan's Carpets was...If you remember there was an old--
[Levi]
Red building.
[Wag]
And I think that they collected them, and the guy that flew them out there was
probably helpin' coordinate that. That happened to be Jennet's husband, Percy
Sinclair. That flew out there. But, it was very controversial. I was just talking
about the F.B.I and all that commin' in earlier. You know, they came in ta the
office. Wanted to know, because our phones were tapped. I had a red file when
they finally decided to release all that stuff. I think that was from the University of
Michigan, because any organized Native group, the members are gonna have
red files.
That's really just how it is. But it was--There was a lot of non-Native people that
supported. Just like there was a lot of non-Natives that supported the AfricanAmerican movement.
[Wag]
[Levi]
Exactly.
[Wag]
If you remember. Wouldn't have happened if they hadn't been.
[Lin]
Mmhm.
[Unknown Person]
That's so important to remember that, not all white people are bad.
[Wag]
Right, right.
[Levi]
What would you say the, if you were to sum up, the Grand Rapids Inter-tribal
Council's leadership? What did it provide to the Indian community? As you recall,
after all these years? You haven't served there for what? Nineteen years as
�[Wag]
executive director. But, what would you say was the calling-card for Grand
Rapids Inter-tribal Council?
I think it was just the place for people to come to. I really, really do. Whether they
were involved in the programs or not. Or, just as a social gathering place.
[Unknown Person]
It's kinda like a fallout shelter. [Laughter]
[Wag]
It ended up being like that.
[Levi]
But it provided a means of cohesiveness for the community?
[Wag]
It did.
[Levi]
Kept the community together?
[Wag]
Yeah, it did.
[Levi]
I don't wanna put words in your mouth. But I just wanna--
[Wag]
It did. I had people, that after I left there and went up north, and it finally closed
down, people ya' know that told me--that they said: "You know, after you left, we
never went back to Inter-tribal." And of course you knew there was a while there
before you took over. You couldn't-- and a lot of those people went back to living
on Reservations. Or, back to their real home, and didn't come in. But, I think the
main thing was that we had--and we had some programs that we had.
[Wag]
We had substance abuse programs, we mental health programs, we had the job
training program.
[Unknown Person]
[Wag]
And food assistance program.
Yes, food assistance, and senior meals.
[Unknown Person]
Right.
[Wag]
So there was an awful lot of things that's goin' on there that the people of the
community came in and organized while they were there at that point in time.
[Levi]
What-One of the things we are trying to do with this project is really to get a
sense of what it was like to be Native during that time in the city--the urban
setting. Whether they were here through relocation programs--
[Wag]
A lot of them were.
�[Levi]
and driven to the city for education. Or, employment opportunities. Give us a
sense of what the climate was like back then.
[Wag]
Well--While the people wanted to help the attitude was, we wanna make you like
us.
[Levi]
Of the non-Natives.
[Wag]
Yeah, yeah. We wanna make you like-like your "Everest" Doug DeVos.
[Levi]
Mhm.
[Wag]
And, he implied something to that effect. we wanna help you become--
[Unknown Person]
[Wag]
Like us.
Like a good dark complected Christians, ya know? Been there, did that!
[Laughter] Didn't work! I said something to him, that I probably shouldn't 'av said.
I don't even know what I said now. But it was something to the effect of: "We
don't live like you. We don't wanna be like white people. We have people thatthat are against the Christian church-- Against Christianity and all its forms.
People that suffer because of that. I myself was a Christian when I came up here.
I'm not anymore. But--
[Unknown Person]
By the way, Doug told me about you telling him that.
[Wag]
Uh huh. Well we never-[Unknown Person]
But, I also told him. I said: "Do you have any idea what they went through
under the banner of Christianity.
[Wag]
[Laughter]
[Unknown Person]
I said: "Just go up to a place like Mount Pleasant, and look at the
orphanage. And ask some of the Indians what they did to 'em."
[Wag]
Yeah.
[Unknown Person]
[Wag]
Yeah.
[Unknown Person]
[Wag]
How they forced them to speak another language.
Yeah.
How they stole them from their parents.
�[Unknown Person]
[Wag]
Absolutely. Well, they cut their hair. I mean, you know.
[Unknown Person]
[Wag]
Cut their hair, made 'em speak different language.
Put 'em all in the same uniform. Yeah.
[Unknown Person]
[Wag]
Dennis Banks was a good example of that.
Yeah.
You couldn't speak your language. And all that kinda thing.
[Unknown Person]
They also abused so many of those kids.
[Wag]
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. One--One of the attitudes, I think Levi, that we went into
here--I remember we had some money from the city--the--
[Levi]
The CD-- The Community Block Grant Money.
[Wag]
Block Grant Money, yeah. Been a long time.
[Levi]
Community Block Grant--CDBG. Yes.
[Wag]
Yeah, Block Grand money.
[Unknown Person]
[Wag]
[Laughter]
I had--Do you remember Howard Greenstra(?)
[Unknown Person]
Yeah. Yeah.
[Levi]
The city manager. Yes.
[Wag]
Well, no city manager--
[Levi]
No--I'm sorry he was a city commissioner.
[Unknown Person]
Right.
[Wag]
He was the city commissioner.
[Levi]
Greenstra, that's right.
�[Wag]
But, he was the chair of the city board.
[Unknown Person]
Right.
[Levi]
Yes.
[Wag]
Said to me, in a meeting, Howard said a lot of things to me.
[Levi]
[Laughter]
[Wag]
I said a few things to Howard. Uh, said to me [INAUDIBLE] at a commission
meeting, committee meeting; "Why have we given you guys money for four
years? How long do you think it's going to take to really help 'ya?
[Levi]
Are you serious?
[Wag]
I am. And I said: "Well, let's see. It took ya four-hundred years to [INAUDIBLE]
[Unknown Person]
[Laughter] [Wag] Maybe we should think in terms of four hundred years?
[Unknown Person]
Yeah, how'd ya like that?
[Levi]
I'm sure, by the time that I got there, I think it was only fifteen thousand dollars a
year. Maybe at your time your time, you probably started at about five or six.
[Wag]
Ten.
[Levi]
Ten.
[Wag]
Ten-thousand.
[Levi]
Oh, so just wait till the...that's kind of a little off. But--I want to say it. That they
expect us to give us two fishes and five loaves of bread.
[Wag]
We're dividers.
[Levi]
Go. Go--Go feed the multitude. Expect us to go solve all the problems, and I will
tell people this all the time. I'm not Jesus Christ. I cannot perform miracles with
this little sum of money you have given us. It's just not gonna happen.
[Wag]
No. no.
[Levi]
I do that on purpose to throw their own scripture back to their face so they get the
�point.
[Wag]
Well, let me tell you somethin' about Howard again, that's really, really
interesting, I think. At that time the museum had twenty-nine--the remains of
twenty-nine Native people that came out of the mounds.
[Levi]
Okay.
[Lin]
Grand Rapids Public Museum?
[Wag]
Yes, Grand Rapids Public Museum. There was a real fight going on throughout
the country, about getting the remains back and out of museums. The guy that
dug those mounds up, was a guy by the name of Richard Flanders. Who was an
anthropology professor at Grand Valley. And--bitter enemies. Bitter enemies. We
finally became friends right before he died. [Laughter] I don't know what that
meant. I mean acquaintances.
[Unknown Person]
[Wag]
How did you accomplish that? [Laughter]
I noticed something [INAUDIBLE]
[Unknown Person]
That was my next point.
[Wag]
But the fight was really going on, and we couldn't even get them to move. I mean
they didn't want to give anything back. Those were scientific remains--they were
studying the science to it-- Find out how you people ate, what you ate, and how
you--ask us! We'll tell you what we ate. A lot of people can tell you what we ate
back then! [Laughter] I mean it was just kind of a joke in these commission
meetings. But they finally-- and this was introduced by Howard, bless his heart.
But they finally said, we are going to return the remains that we can deem as
historical. And we are gonna to keep the remains that we deem as pre-historic.
Keep the pre-historic so that we can study them scientifically. But, those that we
can deem to be historic, return to the community. You know what date they
pass? Fourteen ninety-two. That's a resolution that the city commissioner of
Grand Rapids approved. Fourteen ninety-two. So, if anybody wants to know
when pre-historic time ended--it's fourteen ninety-two. And then he asked me,
when I said: "Hell, Howard. Nobody here but Indians till fourteen ninety-two.
[Levi]
[Laughter]
[Wag]
And then he said: "How can you have-- [INAUDIBLE] Minister of a Christian
Reform church--how can you as people make the association or connection with
people that lived two thousand years ago?
�[Unknown Person]
[Laughter] What was his answer?
[Wag]
You're a Christian minister, and you want me to answer that? Come on. That
ended the conversation.
[Levi]
The basis of Christianity is two thousand years ago. When Jesus walked the
earth. I get your point.
[Wag]
I mean that's the--
[Levi]
That's incredible.
[Wag]
It was incredible.
[Levi]
So, his question was--Just so we get this right-- How could you connect back two
thousand years? What connection you had?
[Wag]
Yeah.
[Levi]
But yet, as a Christian minister, he couldn't see it?
[Wag]
No.
[Levi]
Okay.
[Unknown Person]
[Wag]
In fact, you can go way beyond.
Absolutely.
[Unknown Person]
Way beyond--[INAUDIBLE]
[Levi]
I think the Norton Mound remains, pre-date when Jesus walked the earth fromfrom what I've learned from history.
[Wag]
Well, there's some in UP, there's not supposed to be any up there but there are. I
had a girl that worked for me that found them up there.
[Levi]
To your recollection why do they call them the Hopewell Mounds?
[Wag]
I think there was a tribe, I don't know, I think there was a tribe that they called
Hopewell people. I don't even know what that associates with, I don't have any
idea. It might have been a name that--
[Unknown Person]
Norton.
�[Levi]
I heard he was a farmer out in Ohio. That-That I guess they have mounds there.
[Wag]
Oh, yeah they do.
[Levi]
They associated the two, they connected them. They said: "Oh, they have to be
Hopewell people." Though really it's named after the--
[Unknown Person]
[Levi]
Farms.
[Unknown Person]
[Levi]
Do you know the name of the mounds--
--downtown where the museum is?
Yeah
[Unknown Person]
That whole area was going to be a parking lot. And Randy Brown and I
were on the board, and I told him. I said: "If you don't make those Indian mounds-turn em' Wag Wheeler over them. [Laughter]
[Wag]
Wha-what?
[Unknown Person]
Really! They were gonna make that a parking lot.
[Wag]
I hadn't heard that!
[Wag]
I'm sorry can I get--[INAUDIBLE] As you know...
[Levi]
No, no. This is great stuff! Our Christia-excuse me--Our questions are strictly a
guide. But given the fact that you've run the Grand Rapids Inter-tribal council,
you're going to be a little different in that you know things at a different level than
some of the other people we're gonna interview.
[Lin]
Can I take a break real quick?
[Levi]
Yes, yes.
[Lin]
Can I use your computer and have it plugged into the wall? So, I can plug it into
here?
[Levi]
Yes.
[Lin]
This sat here so long that the battery is dead.
�[Levi]
Let me go get my electrical cord. [Sneezing] That's no problem.
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/15daeb4a8d0a27ce0234ba3dddbf1c7c.mp3
5251e4f3d7897ce5c40a86e5dc4ca97b
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Gi-gikinomaage-min Interviews
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. Native American Advisory Council
Grand Valley State University. Kustche Office of Local History
Description
An account of the resource
Interviews with members of Grand Rapids' urban Native American population collected as part of the Gi-gikinomaage-min Project: Defend Our History, Unlock Your Spirit.
Translated from Anishinaabemowin, the original language of this area, Gi-gikinomaage-min means "We are all teachers." This is the name our project team choose to convey to the Native American community that through our stories and experiences, we are all teachers to someone. As we share those stories, we are allowing for our next generations to experience the past.
Grand Rapids’ Native American community grew dramatically in the last half of the 20th century as a result of a little-known federal program that still impacts American Indian lives today. Called the Urban Relocation Program, it created one of the largest mass movements of Indians in American history. The full scope of this massive social experiment and its impact on multiple generations of Native Americans remains largely undocumented and unexplored.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015/2016
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Gi-gikinomaage-min Project
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In Copyright
Subject
The topic of the resource
Indians of North America
Indians of North America--Michigan
Indians of North America--Education
Potawatomi Indians
Bode'wadmi
Ojibwa Indians
Anishinaabe
Navajo Indians
Dine'e
Cherokee Indians
Tsagali
Aniyunwiya
Archaeology
Mound-builders
Hopewellian culture
Indian arts--North America
Personal narrativse
Grand Rapids (Mich.)
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. Special Collections & University Archives
Identifier
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DC-10
Format
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audio/mp3
video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
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Sound
Moving Image
Text
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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DC-10_Wheeler_Wagner_0615
Creator
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Wheeler, James Wagner "Wag"
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-04-23
Title
A name given to the resource
Wag Wheeler interview (audio and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
James Wagner "Wag" Wheeler was born in eastern Oklahoma to Cherokee parents in 1935. In his life in Salisaw, Oklahoma, Wheeler worked as an accountant and administrator until becoming the Executive Director of Oklahoma Indian Opportunity. After the organization lost its funding, he moved to Michigan to pursue a masters degree in public administration from the University of Michigan. There, he co-founded the Native American Student Association of UM, and was recruited to be the Executive Director of the Grand Rapids Inter-Tribal Counter and became a major contributor to local Native American social services for 18 years. He served as the CEO of Grand Traverse Band of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians for two years. In this interview, he discusses his life and experiences as a community leader trying to reinvigorate Native cultural traditions in Grand Rapids community.
Contributor
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Bardwell, Belinda (Interviewer)
Rickert, Levi (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Cherokee Indians
Tsagali
Aniyunwiya
Personal narratives
Grand Rapids (Mich.)
Indians of North America
Indians of North America--Michigan
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Gi-gikinomaage-min Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng