Diné John Redhouse: Farmington was the Hate Crime Capital of the West in 1974
John Redhouse: Invasion and Genocide: The War on Native People is Ongoing
Article by Brenda Norrell, Censored News, July 4, 2025
Part II in our series
Watch recorded live on July 4: Farmington Book Launch
ALBUQUERQUE -- "This book has been crying out to be published," John Redhouse said, as he named the great writers he was inspired by as a high school graduate in Farmington when he joined the National Indian Youth Council. "The Red Power Movement was, and still is, very much alive in the Southwest."
"Every chapter could be a book in itself," John said.
John launched his new book in Pyramid Lake, Nevada, Bordertown Clashes, Resource Wars, Contested Territories: The Four Corners in the Turbulent 1970s. This second event was at Books on the Bosque bookstore in Albuquerque.
Jennifer Nez Denetdale, professor at the University of New Mexico, said she read a guest column written for Navajo Times in the 1980s, when the Navajo Nation extinguished its land claims to all aboriginal land.
In that column, John's extensive research showed that the Navajo leaders had entered into an agreement and extinguished its aboriginal land claims for the price, on the dollar, at 1846 land prices. John wasn't invited to write guest columns at Navajo Times after that, Denetdale said.
Red Media's Melanie Yazzie said the book, a memoir written at Pyramid Lake where his family is, launched two days ago in Pyramid Lake in Nevada.
John said books on Farmington racism have been written non-Indian authors.
"All of the non-authors don't know what its like to be on the receiving end of racism, discrimination, exploitation, colonialism, injustice and genocide -- the kind of horrors, genocide that we've experienced since 1492."
"Indian people are still being killed. This adds to the total sum of the ongoing genocide," pointing out that this invasion and genocide extends through the hemisphere, including in South America.
"Our territories are still being invaded. Those are elements of war. It is the longest war in history."
John said the white invasion resulted in "98 percent of our people were killed." The genocide and Holocaust is very real.
As he began his life's work as an activist, John said he was blown away by the magnitude of genocide.
"We were in a state of war," John said and remembered how he felt, "My people were at war, so I am at war."
That was the beginning for John.
Yazzie points out that Denetdale was the first Native person to earn a PhD in history.
"So we are here with legends," Yazzie said.
Yazzie asked Denetdale what the significance of John's book is. Denetdale said the answer is multi-layered.
Denetdale shared her background, from learning how to research when there were no Native professors teaching research, to her early research at the National Archives in Washington.
There she found the "horror story."
Denetdale said John's critique are of the structures we live in, which are not friendly and are very violent and hateful. Within this, she said, you find your own place, with your own people, your own generosity.
"This is an offering," Denetdale said, quoting John.
This is what you do on behalf of your people, she said.
Denetdale points out John's memory, his attention to detail and his clarity.
Cloud, local activist in Albuquerque, asked John what it was like to organize during the COINTELPRO era and how state oppression showed itself in the movement.
John said they organized under the Coalition for Native Liberation and there were different groups involved. The Navajo families, clans and communities that came from where Navajos were mutilated and murdered organized protests and were the heart of the protests.
"The true leadership flowed out of that, it is really remarkable."
The Coalition included the NAACP. The Blacks in Farmington were outraged that their red brothers and sisters were being treated that way in April of 1974, and outraged that it was happening long before that.
Many of the Black families, including students he grew up with, escaped racism themselves, and had fled from Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. They fled with their lives to escape lynching and hate crimes, they got on a bus and went as far as they could. They understood racism, they understood violence based on the color of one's skin.
The San Juan Human Rights Committee was part of the Coalition. Rev. Henry Bird had organized against the Vietnam War, and was part of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which began with the killing of Emmett Till, 14, murdered in Mississippi.
Bird led others in how to protest with dignity, in respect to hate crime victims. Bird was an Episcopal priest at the San Juan Mission, and its membership was all Navajo. Several of the hate crime victims' families were members of the Mission. The Church Women United were also involved in the Coalition, through peaceful protests.
There were five peaceful, legal marches.
"The police tried to provoke us," John said, and said the rednecks and teenagers also tried to provoke them.
"The racial hatred was really ugly."
"Farmington was the hate crime capital of the west at that time," John said of that year, 1974.
People are still being killed there in racially-motivated hate crimes.
"They are still taking away our families, our people," he said. "They are being killed because they are Indians, they are being killed because of who they are."
City police, state police and National Guard were ready to move in, if the provocation worked out. The FBI was very much involved.
"When I was arrested, I was told, 'We're going to kill all of you f---ing Indians." Those words came from law enforcement.
This was the spring and summer of 1974.
Growing up in Farmington, John said he had a lot of anger and hatred inside of him, from living in a white racist bordertown. They were mistreated in school and the workplace. It was the reality of living in that kind of environment.
"It had a radicalizing effect on me."
John joined the modern Red Power Movement, and the lead organization was the National Indian Youth Council, founded in Gallup, New Mexico.
Please continue listening to the second hour of the interview by Red Media.
Upcoming book launches
Book talk and livestream at Inspired Moments Event Center
July 5, 2025 – Gallup, NM
Book sale and author meet & greet at the Gallup Flea Market
Censored News original series
FARMINGTON, NM -- On the Fourth of July, John Redhouse Pinpoints Coal-Fired Racism in Farmington
ALBUERQUE -- Dine' John Redhouse: Farmington was the Hate Criminal Capital of the West in 1974
PYRAMID LAKE, Nevada -- Sharing 55 years of history of the Red Power Movement, John Redhouse launches new book on bordertown racism
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/07/live-today-john-redhouse-launches-new.html
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