Category: Cour d’Alene Tribe

“Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World”

“Rumble” is a 2017 Canadian documentary film that I’d missed until it hit public television. I watched it twice, taking notes the second time, wanting to get in my mind the names of Rock n’ Roll, jazz, and blues musicians I’d listened to—and many I had not heard or heard of before.

I’d have to slow it down and stop action to get all the names and dates, but I know enough now to know that once again the roles of American Indians in the American story have been hidden or muted, and that there is again the story of resilience. Joy Harjo, our current national poet laureate and a member of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation, says, as the credits roll, that “We’re still here; we’re still alive; we’re still singing. Read The Article

Passing as White

Albert Barros, enrolled Nez Perce and old friend of Josephys and mine, recently forwarded a piece on jazz musician Mildred Bailey. Bailey, who sang In the 30s and 40s, was considered the first big white jazz singer and a trail blazer for later female jazz stars Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.

White? Her mother was a Coeur d’Alene tribal member, her father Swiss-Irish. She was born Mildred Rinker in Tekoa, Washington in 1900, and the family moved to Spokane when she was 13. They were called “breeds” in Spokane, and her father suggested they downplay the Indian heritage (at a time when light skinned blacks across the country were passing as white and my Indian classmates in California were passing as Mexican).

One of their Spokane neighbors, who joined with her brother Al to form a group called the “Rhythm Boys,” later became known as Bing Crosby. By the late 20s, all three were in California, and, through Bing, Mildred Read The Article