Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:10 — 38.6MB) | Embed

The Muscogee Nation will assume some law enforcement duties in the city of Tulsa, Okla., when it comes to tribal citizens. The development over jurisdiction ends a federal lawsuit filed by the Muscogee Nation in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark McGirt decision in 2020. The Cherokee and Osage Nations also potentially have jurisdiction claims in Tulsa and other cities. Local law enforcement officials and Gov. Kevin Stitt (R-OK) oppose the agreement, saying it creates a two-tiered system of justice. We’ll find out what the new agreement solves and what it leaves unanswered.

Also, tribes connected to Florida are speaking out against the Trump administration’s fast track plans to establish a detention center for immigration actions near the Florida Everglades. Miccosukee and Seminole tribal officials and citizens say the center, dubbed the “Alligator Alcatraz,” infringes on land that is their “cultural, spiritual, and historical identity.”

GUESTS

Betty Osceola (Miccosukee), environmental educator

State Rep. Scott Fetgatter (Choctaw/R-OK 16)

Robert Miller (Eastern Shawnee), law professor at Arizona State University and tribal judge

Jason Salsman (Muscogee), press secretary for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation

 

Break 1 Music:  Dragonfly, Dragonfly (song) Joy Harjo (artist) Red Dreams, A Trail Beyond Tears (album)

Break 2 Music: The Wild One (song) Link Wray (artist)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:56 — 38.4MB) | Embed

The violent attacks on legislators in Minnesota are a shocking reminder of the pervasive threats rising from political divisions. The Brennan Center for Justice finds the volume and severity of abuse directed at public officials is increasing, and is disproportionately directed at women and people of color. As officials in Minnesota and the rest of the nation grieve the recent tragedy, we’ll look at the potential effect rising threats has on the willingness of Native Americans, and others, to hold public office.

We’ll also learn more about a theatrical production offered by a church in the Navajo border town Gallup, N.M. that has many Navajo citizens upset over insensitive portrayals of Navajo spiritual culture.

GUESTS

State Rep. Heather Keeler (Ihaƞktoƞwaƞ and Eastern Shoshone/DFL-MN 04A)

Louvannina Tsosie (Navajo), witness, advocate of Navajo culture, and university student

Carl Slater (Diné), Navajo Nation council delegate

Samuel Strong (Red Lake), tribal secretary for the Red Lake Nation

 

Break 1 Music: Navajo Waltz (song) Jonah Littlesunday (artist) Gratitiude (album)

Break 2 Music: The Wild One (song) Link Wray (artist)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:28 — 38.1MB) | Embed

An illegal voting case in Alaska highlights lingering confusion over the rights extended to the citizens of American Samoa, a U.S. territory. Eleven Samoans from Whittier, Alaska are charged with felonies for alleged voter fraud by participating in their local election. All have U.S. passports, were born on U.S. soil, and can even participate in the presidential primary process. The territory has been under heavy colonial pressure for centuries and has been under U.S. oversight for more than 125 years. But Congress never granted its citizens the right to vote in national elections.

In another case, tribes in North Dakota were dealt a serious blow in their ongoing fight against redistricting that reduces their collective power in state elections.

GUESTS

Charles Ala’ilima (Samoan), attorney

Tafilisaunoa Toleafoa (Samoan), executive director of the Pacific Community of Alaska

Neil Weare, co-director of Right to Democracy

Nicole Donaghy (Hunkpapa Lakota), executive director of North Dakota Native Vote

 

Break 1 Music: Matagofie (song) National University of Samoa Singers with Opeloge Ah Sam (artist)

Break 2 Music: The Wild One (song) Link Wray (artist)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:49 — 38.3MB) | Embed

Minnesota is the first state to sign compacts with tribes for cannabis operations. The White Earth Nation just opened that state’s first off-reservation recreational marijuana retail store. A second store is already in the works with the tribe envisioning as many as eight dispensaries statewide. But as some tribes lead the way with economic development potential for cannabis, some other tribes elsewhere are subject to law enforcement actions and regulatory hurdles. We’ll hear about both the success stories and dead ends for tribal cannabis operations.

GUESTS

Mary Jane Oatman (Nez Perce and Delaware), executive director of the Indigenous Cannabis Industry Association and founder of THC Magazine

Lester Marston (Cahuilla), attorney and tribal court judge

Blake Johnson (Dakota), president of Prairie Island CBH Inc.

Zach Wilson, CEO of Waabigwan Mashkiki LLC

 

Break 1 Music: Intertribal Song (song) Dakota Nation (artist) Home of the Champions (album)

Break 2 Music: The Wild One (song) Link Wray (artist)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:30 — 38.8MB) | Embed

Deb Haaland’s (Laguna Pueblo) political star rose fast, from heading her state party to congresswoman to U.S. Secretary of the Interior. Each step of the way she blazed a trail for Native women. As the head of the agency that oversees Indian Affairs, Haaland championed a first-of-its-kind documentation of the U.S. Government’s role in the Indian Boarding School Era, drawing on both public records and first-hand testimony from survivors and their descendants. Now, she aims to become the first female Native American governor in her home state of New Mexico. We’ll hear from Haaland about her legacy as Interior Secretary and her hopes for the future.

We’ll also get perspectives on the historic agreement between the federal government and Northwest tribes to protect endangered salmon, and the equally historic decision by President Donald Trump to rescind that agreement. We’ll discuss what it means for salmon and the trust in the federal government.

GUESTS

Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo), former U.S. Secretary of the Interior

Erik Holt (Nez Perce), chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe Fish and Wildlife Commission

Jeremy Takala (Yakama), member of the Yakama Nation tribal council and the chair of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission

 

Break 1 Music: On the Road Missing Home (Corn Dance) (song) Sheldon Sundown (artist) Hand Drum/Smoke N’ Round Dance (album)

Break 2 Music: The Wild One (song) Link Wray (artist)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:01 — 38.5MB) | Embed

The stage drama “Unto These Hills“, put on by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, is celebrating 75 years of telling southeast American history from a Native American perspective. It is a major tourism draw every summer to the outdoor Mountainside Theatre on the Qualla Boundary.

One enterprising Navajo entrepreneur is helping out southwest tourism destinations, connecting travelers with the places they want to go while tribal businesses can hang on to more of their money.

What better time than the Summer Solstice to look around at Native American tourism draws for the season?

GUESTS

Laura Blythe (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians), program director for the Cherokee Historical Association

DeAnnethea Long (Diné and San Carlos Apache), director of operations for Moenkopi Developers Corporation

Wyatt Gilmore (Navajo), CEO and owner of Laguna Creek and Native American Tours

Robert Hall (Blackfeet), Blackfeet Native American studies instructor at the Browning School on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation

 

Break 1 Music: The Wild One (song) Link Wray (artist)

Break 2 Music: Maybe (song) Mogley & the Zoniez (artist) Better Late Than Never (album)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:03 — 38.5MB) | Embed

Tulsa, Okla. Mayor Monroe Nichols is championing a $105 million reparations package for the survivors and families of his city’s 1921 Race Massacre. It’s a philanthropy-driven city and housing rejuvenation project to offset the continuing repercussions from the coordinated attack more than a century ago. At the time, thousands of white residents besieged what was among the most successful and affluent Black communities in the early 20th century. Three hundred Black people died and more than a thousand homes and businesses were destroyed. Years of efforts to compensate descendants for the violence have failed. We’ll get perspectives from Freedmen descendants about the importance of this ambitious effort to set things right.

Also, we’ll learn about a swamp with connections to Indigenous people going back thousands of years. On the homelands of the Nansemond Indian Nation in Virginia, the Great Dismal Swamp was a safe space for tribes. It also became a refuge for Black freedom seekers escaping slavery. Federal officials are exploring it as a new National Heritage Area.

GUESTS

Hannibal B. Johnson, author, attorney, and consultant

Saché Primeaux-Shaw (Ponca, Yankton Dakota, Seminole, and Chickasaw Freedman), historian and genealogist

Sam Bass (Nansemond Indian Nation), Chief Emeritus of the Nansemond Indian Nation

 Alexandra Sutton (African American and Yesàh), co-founder of the Great Dismal Swamp Stakeholder Collaborative and executive director of Indigenous East

Eric “Mubita” Sheppard, co-founder of Mubita LLC

 

Break 1 Music: Healing Song (song) Red Hawk Medicine Drum (artist) New Beginnings (album)

Break 2 Music: Maybe (song) Mogley & the Zoniez (artist) Better Late Than Never (album)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:06 — 38.5MB) | Embed

A new study finds the death rate for Native Americans — which was already higher than other groups — is much higher than previously thought. The analysis just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) finds the gap in life expectancy between Native Americans and Alaska Natives and the national average is almost three times wider than what official statistics say it is. The researchers point to the fact that more than 40% of death certificates misidentify Native Americans and Alaska Natives. One of the study’s researchers says the discrepancies indicate “statistical erasure” in routine public health data has obscured the severity of a mortality crisis among Native people. We’ll get a handle on the new study and what is behind the numbers.

GUESTS

Michael Bird (Kewa Pueblo and Ohkay Owingeh), past president of the American Public Health Association and past national consultant for AARP

Stephanie Woolhandler, distinguished professor at the City University of New York – Hunter College

Dr. Alec Calac (Pauma Band of Luiseño Indians), American Indian Health Policy Scholar and medical student at University of California-San Diego

 

Break 1 Music: Stomp Dance (song) George Hunter (artist) Haven (album)

Break 2 Music: Maybe (song) Mogley & the Zoniez (artist) Better Late Than Never (album)