'Strengthening to see your past'

 

“It's always good to go home. It's strengthening to see your past and know you have someplace to go where you're part of a people.” – John Trudell

 

Born into the Dakota Santee nation on this date in 1946, Trudell (who died in 2015) was an author, poet, actor, musician and political activist who spent most of his writing life combining his poetry with traditional Native American music.

 

A leading spokesperson for the American Indian Movement, Trudell said he felt truth came from the arts.  “When one lives in a society where people can no longer rely on the institutions to tell them the truth,” he said, “the truth must come from culture and art.”

 

 For a look at some 25 years of Trudell’s powerful writings, check out the book Lines From a Mined Mind: The Words of John Trudell.  

 

As an actor, Trudell performed in many movies, including Thunderheart, On Deadly Ground and Smoke Signals.  He also served as adviser to the award-winning documentary Incident at Oglala, Robert Redford’s “real life” companion piece to the fictional Thunderheart and exploring the 1975 shooting of two FBI agents on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation. 

 

A writer before he became a musician, Trudell once noted that “Every song I've ever written starts with the words.  I want the music to be . . . (an) extension of the feelings of the words, and not the words being the emotional extension of the feeling of the music.”