The Killing Fields in the Bordertown -- John Redhouse 'Hate Crimes Didn't Begin, or End, in Farmington in 1974'

John Redhouse, Dine', speaking at "Remembering 1974" in Farmington on Saturday.

The Killing Fields in the Bordertown

Hate Crimes Didn't Begin, or End, in Farmington in 1974

"It was a time of greatness. The long hot summer of 1974." John Redhouse

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Sept. 22, 2024

FARMINGTON, New Mexico -- John Redhouse, Dine', shared the history of the resistance to the torture and murder of Navajos in 1974, and made it clear that the racism, hate crimes and murders of Dine' in Farmington did not begin, or end, in 1974.

John joined Dine' to honor the victims and their families, and the resistance, during the "Remembering 1974: Paths to Healing," at the Totah Theater in downtown  Farmington on Saturday. 

Dine' remembered John Earl Harvey, Herman Dodge Benally, and David Ignacio, tortured and murdered by white teenagers in 1974.

John Redhouse, cofounder of the Coalition for Navajo Liberation, said Indian killing here goes back to the 1870's, when white settlers moved into the area from the north, after dispossessing the Utes, Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute, of their gold, and putting them on tiny reservations. In the 1870's, the killings began.

"They already had a history of Indian killing and stealing Indian land."

Navajos were already living here in the middle San Juan River Valley when white settlers arrived. Navajos hid out here, and never went to Fort Sumner, Bosque Redondo. They were still here, they had farms, and grazing areas here. In reality, and physically, it was Navajo land.

In 1876, this area was opened up to what they called the public domain.

"That's when the settlers really started swarming in. It wasn't long, in the late 1870's, that they began their Indian killing."

Navajos were chased out to where there was no water for farming and grazing to the dry plateau. "Here they had the San Juan River."

"Back then Indians weren't regarded as human beings, much like today, much like today, they were considered less than human. Over here on Main Street, in 1880, they started shooting Indians for target practice."

"That is documented in some of the history books. That's where it really began."

"We didn't really take that, like in 1974 -- we rose up."

Chief Blackhorse gathered about a thousand Navajos, and they came over here and they said, "Give up those Indian killers, or we will destroy this town."

"Now, that's not AIM talking, that's not CNL (Coalition for Navajo Liberation) talking, it was our brave resistance leaders that were talking back then."

"We had a Warrior Society back then."

Farmington protest 1974. Photo by Bob Fitch

"That Warrior Society is what the American Indian Movement, United Native Americans, and National Indian Youth Council models our activism on, it wasn't something that just came up as a result of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950's, 1960's, it goes back to 1870, to 1492, that's where the resistance began, with the first invasion."

"There were many victims there, many people fought and died in those resistance wars, they need to be included in the victims. They made the ultimate sacrifice in protecting the land and the people."

"Since 1492, over 98 percent of Indian people that lived here were wiped out, killed, by invasion, disease, colonization, deadly conditions that we were subjected to."

"That's genocide, and it is continuing, with every Indian that they kill, that's a continuation of that genocide."

"The Indian wars are not over. We know that."

John said when white people say that there is no more racism, no more genocide, that is not true.

"They've never been on the receiving end of racism, and hate crimes."

"We're the only ones that have standing and truth to make that statement."

"In 1974, fifty years ago, the City of Farmington was the enemy of the people, of the resistance movement."

They thought the district attorney, courts would settle it, and said, "Don't make trouble."

"They called me an outsider, and a trouble maker, that wasn't true."

"I grew up in Farmington. I was born and raised here," John said, describing growing up here in the 1950's. He knew Farmington through the 1970's.

John remembered being followed in stores, being racially profiled at the variety store, which didn't happen to the white kids. In high school, the racial slurs started. 

Then there was an attempted vehicular homicide on a mother. That's when he first heard the term, "hate crimes."

"They always outnumber us, like three to one, like cowards."

During 1967 and 1968, in the Indian part of town, there were many people from the Checkerboard area, and they would talk about the hate crimes.

"White teenagers would go out at midnight and kidnap and beat our people."

"People would just disappear," he said, "There was a pattern of hate crimes. It goes way back."

"Don't think this 1974 was an isolated incident."

And those white hate crimes were minimized by those who said, "Boys will be boys, they're just blowing off steam."

But the ingrained racism has been here since the 1870's, it manifests itself in different ways, but it's still there.

In 2012, John was eating at Olive Garden here in Farmington, and a "redneck oil worker" started talking in a racist way to his wife, so that John and his wife could hear. John countered him, and even though the other person was younger, in his 30s, and John was in his 60's, he didn't back down. "He was drunk."

John knew he could be beaten up when he went out to the parking lot, and the guy was younger and bigger. He went out to the parking lot and waited for him, but he never showed up.

"I wasn't going to back down, we should never back down. We should fight racism with our lives."

Sharing the history of the Coalition for Navajo Liberation, John shared how the KIVA Club at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque was part of the formation of the  movement. Press conferences in Albuquerque held by the Indian movements, including AIM and the International Indian Youth Movement, made national news.

Then there was a press conference in the small Indian center in Farmington, and it was packed.

"That's where I first heard Lucy Keeswood speak. She electrified the audience. She was a natural leader."

Larry Anderson was there. And they were going to do something, they had no faith in bordertown justice. This was the continuation of genocide.

March on Farmington 1974. Chili Yazzie in white shirt and black hat drumming. Photo Bob Fitch

"It was that revolutionary spirit that gave birth to this modern Navajo civil rights movement. The Coalition for Navajo Liberation was made up of different organizations." There was collective leadership, there was group leadership, and the NAACP and San Juan Civil Rights Committee, along with white allies, supported their demands. They supported a new Indian center and a rehabilitation center, it was about constructive change.

It was much different then, the courtesy and respect shown today by the city, was not possible in 1974. "There was no dialogue, the city was totally opposed to us."

"The mayor, one of the city councilman, said, 'The only way to handle these militants  is to shoot them.'"

"They were the ones talking violence, advocating violence. All of our marches were peaceful and legal."

Blocking the car to remove Calvary unit from Sheriff's Posse Parade in Farmington in 1974

John described his arrest by Farmington police at one of the marches, on June 8, 1974, when they blocked a car, and asked for the racist Calvary unit to be removed from the San Juan County Sheriff's Posse Parade in downtown Farmington.

John described the cussing and brutality of the police as they attacked Dine' marchers with tear gas. 

Police, about ten of them swinging their night sticks, came after John. Several of them tried to shove him through a plate glass window. But John was able to make a defensive move, and two of them went through the plate glass window instead of him.

"A cop came up from behind me and tried to break my windpipe." Instead of reading them their rights, the police grabbed them and threw them in the back of a squad car, with dirty, foul language.

"The bottom line was that he threatened to kill us," John said of the police officers  who arrested him and other Dine' marchers.

The police officer said, "I don't care who we have to call in, we'll kill all of you f--king Indians."

There were 33 marchers arrested.

Larry Anderson, and Esther Keeswood, were able to mobilize people.

    Larry Anderson, Dine', March on Farmington 1974. Photo by Bob Fitch.

John said the marches were peaceful, but the police tried to agitate and provoke the marchers, so they could arrest the marchers and brutalize them.

"We didn't attack them, they attacked us."

Then, Farmington tried to keep them from marching, which was fought with lawyers. They won the right to march after a month of litigation.

John said the three white teenagers who were convicted of torturing and murdering Navajos in 1974 were sentenced to New Mexico Boys School at Springer, where they spent easy years, they were probably shooting pool and bragging about killing Indians. "They weren't going to be rehabilitated," he said, pointing out that they were part of that white culture.

"There's no such thing as an Indian friendly bordertown," he said, pointing out they  are on stolen land, and why they are referred to as "settler colonists."

A time of greatness, the long hot summer of 1974. Photo by Bob Fitch

Remembering the words of Norman Patrick Brown, Dine', John said, "It was a time of greatness." John said Norman was another hero, who fought for the elders and children, shoulder to shoulder with Peltier, at Jumping Bull camp.

John remembered the leaders, including Larry Emerson, Dine', and the mass marches in 1974.

Speaking of Leonard Peltier, John said, "He is our hero." In the 1970s, Peltier worked in construction in the Page area, and he would come to Farmington and stay at the Avery Hotel.

John said Peltier knew about the racism in Farmington, and Peltier wrote about a Navajo police officer beating an elderly Navajo here. Peltier yelled out to the officer to stop, but he wouldn't.

John said there hasn't been anything like that long, hot summer of 1974.

"We were outraged, we were shocked, we were angry."

They knew there were other victims of racial hate crimes, many more.

"There were killing fields."

"It is a literal bone yard of Navajo hate crime victims in those hills," he said of the bluffs and Chokecherry Canyon, around Farmington where Navajo victims are buried.

"We're talking about mass murder."

"It's just continuing."

Pointing out that he didn't come to Farmington to make trouble, he was a summer intern, working at the San Juan County Economic Council in 1974, focusing his research on Indian lifestyles and employment issues for his people, and why Dine' come to the bordertown to find work. He said the data is important for the future to build an agenda to improve Dine' lives for the future.

"We care about our people. We love our people. They are flesh of the same flesh, blood of the same blood. It's like the three victims, they are our brothers, an attack on one was an attack on all," he said, describing the unity of the movement during those five weeks in 1974.

John said this history needs to be properly written and properly documented by a Dine', in a Navajo context.

He said the book, "Broken Circles," is written by a white person for white readers, and is offensive to many. "There's no Navajo context, there's no feeling." And he said there are many inaccuracies in the book, and opportunities want to make money off of it, make movies.

"He makes us look like savages," he said of page 96 of Broken Circle, "That's what they think of us."

"We don't talk that way." There are Dine' great scholars who can write this history, and John named many Dine' authors and scholars. John said among the books written by Dine' coauthors  is "Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation," written by Nick Estes, Melanie K. Yazzie, Jennifer Nez Denetdale, and David Correia.

Cheryl Rehorse Bennett was among the Dine' authors present on Saturday. Cheryl's  book, "Our Fight Has Just Begun: Hate Crimes and Justice in Native America," documents the hate crimes and murders in Farmington.

Farmington protest 1974. Photo by Bob Fitch.

John recognized Chili Yazzie as a champion of Dine' civil rights and human rights leader, "He's always been there."

Speaking of the hate crimes, John said Chili and Stella Webster were victims of hate crimes.

"Chili took a bullet in reservation violence, it made him stronger."

"We really need his integrity."

"He is a blessing to the Totah Navajos."

John said this history needs to be included in the colleges and universities. "Some people don't even know who Fred Johnson is."

Russell Means came here in the 1990s, and spoke of the hate crimes in 1974. The street people told Russell, "Russell, it's still going on, it's still going on."

"They knew their reality on the mean streets of Farmington."

John appreciated the Totah Theater, here since 1948, as a place to gather, and deal with healing. This is one way, but the people have to have a say, and there are other strategies to deal with racism and hate.

"We have to think outside the box, to ensure our survival as a people, in our homeland."

Read more:

"Fifty Years Ago: Uprising and Resistance," by John Redhouse at Censored News.

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/05/dine-john-redhouse-fifty-years-ago.html

Censored News live coverage of speakers on Saturday

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/bordertown-racism-remembering-murders.html