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WHAT NOISE DOES A SMALL PLUMB MAKE? at the age of 75, SACHEEN LITTLEFEATHER passed away.
3 October 2022
A little feather is so light that we cannot hear the sound of its movement in the air
But in 1973 Sacheen Littlefeather produced a so powerful and deep sound that it has come down to us traveling through the years and the consciousnesses of those who laughed at her, ignored her, acclaimed her, isolated her. A disturbing sound to the United States that proclaims itself as the home of freedoms and civil rights while hiding the dust of prevarication under the huge Stars and Stripes carpet.
Sacheen made that sound in the very “nest” of building that imagery of freedom and well-deserved achievements, namely during the 45th Academy Awards.
Sacheen was an American actress and Native American rights, activist. Born Marie Louise Cruz, she experienced a childhood scarred by the violence and alcoholism suffered by her father from whom she took Apache ancestry. She was an activist from a young age: during her years attending California State College at Hayward and studying acting and speech, she joined the United Bay Indian Council and participated in the occupation of Alcatraz in 1970, adopting the name Sacheen Littlefeather. Her life has always been characterized by advocacy for Native rights, and their recognition in every context, including the performing arts.
But the day Marlon Brando was awarded the Oscar for best actor for playing Vito Corleone in The Godfather was one that had great significance in her story and our history.
Brando decided to turn down the Oscar, and instead of going on stage to do it himself, he asked Sacheen to do it for him: he gave her instructions not to take the award, and to read a speech he had written to motivate that choice. She was allowed to speak for only one minute, during which she read these words
Marlon Brando had never hidden his commitment to defending Native Americans and against racism, so he wanted to take the opportunity of the certainty of winning an Oscar to make a political gesture, with great impact, and expose the injustices that Native Americans had always been forced to suffer. Marlon Brando was a politically engaged rebel. Then there were those who, by dint of playing the cowboy, believed they were also in real life: in fact, John Wayne had a rush of anger upon hearing Sacheen’s words, so much so that he threatened to pull her off the stage by force if she did not stop talking. He was blocked by security. Nor was there any lack of superficial jokes from Clint Eastwood and Rachel Welch.
Sacheen had to speak interrupted by whistles but also by applause. A single little feather dressed in Apache garb scratched the pride of the gunmen. Just her alone.
The following day, the New York Times published the full text of Marlon Brando’s speech
“For 200 years we have said to the Indian people who are fighting for their land, their life, their families and their right to be free: ”Lay down your arms, my friends, and then we will remain together. Only if you lay down your arms, my friends, can we then talk of peace and come to an agreement which will be good for you.”
When they laid down their arms, we murdered them. We lied to them. We cheated them out of their lands. We starved them into signing fraudulent agreements that we called treaties which we never kept. We turned them into beggars on a continent that gave life for as long as life can remember. And by any interpretation of history, however twisted, we did not do right. We were not lawful nor were we just in what we did. For them, we do not have to restore these people, we do not have to live up to some agreements, because it is given to us by virtue of our power to attack the rights of others, to take their property, to take their lives when they are trying to defend their land and liberty, and to make their virtues a crime and our own vices virtues.
But there is one thing which is beyond the reach of this perversity and that is the tremendous verdict of history. And history will surely judge us. But do we care? What kind of moral schizophrenia is it that allows us to shout at the top of our national voice for all the world to hear that we live up to our commitment when every page of history and when all the thirsty, starving, humiliating days and nights of the last 100 years in the lives of the American Indian contradict that voice?
It would seem that the respect for principle and the love of one’s neighbor have become dysfunctional in this country of ours, and that all we have done, all that we have succeeded in accomplishing with our power is simply annihilating the hopes of the newborn countries in this world, as well as friends and enemies alike, that we’re not humane, and that we do not live up to our agreements.
Perhaps at this moment you are saying to yourself what the hell has all this got to do with the Academy Awards? Why is this woman standing up here, ruining our evening, invading our lives with things that don’t concern us, and that we don’t care about? Wasting our time and money and intruding in our homes.
I think the answer to those unspoken questions is that the motion picture community has been as responsible as any for degrading the Indian and making a mockery of his character, describing his as savage, hostile and evil. It’s hard enough for children to grow up in this world. When Indian children watch television, and they watch films, and when they see their race depicted as they are in films, their minds become injured in ways we can never know.
Recently there have been a few faltering steps to correct this situation, but too faltering and too few, so I, as a member in this profession, do not feel that I can as a citizen of the United States accept an award here tonight. I think awards in this country at this time are inappropriate to be received or given until the condition of the American Indian is drastically altered. If we are not our brother’s keeper, at least let us not be his executioner.
I would have been here tonight to speak to you directly, but I felt that perhaps I could be of better use if I went to Wounded Knee to help forestall in whatever way I can the establishment of a peace which would be dishonorable as long as the rivers shall run and the grass shall grow.
I would hope that those who are listening would not look upon this as a rude intrusion, but as an earnest effort to focus attention on an issue that might very well determine whether or not this country has the right to say from this point forward we believe in the inalienable rights of all people to remain free and independent on lands that have supported their life beyond living memory.
Thank you for your kindness and your courtesy to Miss Littlefeather. Thank you and good night”.
After this event, their goal of drawing media attention to the Wounded Knee Reservation occupation-surely you know the history of the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890-was achieved. For Sacheen it marked the beginning of the decline of his career, as the government worked hard to discredit his image, and Hollywood well …. Hollywood does not allow criticism.
But Sacheen stated in later years.
Rosa Parks was the first one to sit on that bus. Someone had to be the first to pay the ticket price. And that someone was me….
Many of us know this history because it was an extraordinary event. But many people knew it last August, that is when almost 50 years later the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences-the organization that awards the Oscars-asked her to apologize for the way she was treated by the people attending the ceremony in 1973.
She replied, using the irony she considered an excellent remedy for survival, that Native Americans can be patient: after all, it had only been 50 years!
Sacheen Littlefeather died on October 2, 2022, at 75. Life held many health problems for her, even to the point of making her a terminal cancer patient.
Let’s talk about her, let’s take her to schools, let’s paint her story on the walls, let’s keep her image with us, to remind us that a single Littlefeather, moving, can make more noise than a miserable cowboy’s gun. To convey that no act in defense of a right is useless. Only in this way can we succeed in nurturing beauty for the other possible world.
