News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Tuesday December 16th 2025
Christopher Toliver: Spoken Word
Christopher Toliver”'s dabbling in creative writing ultimately grew into a passion. Drawing on his extensive experience with street life, Chris has now published his first novel, Hallway Man, as well as a wealth of poems and short stories. In 2010, while doing freelance work with Insight Newspaper, Toliver was awarded a Micro Grant through Project in Pride and Living to further his ambition in obtaining a black-owned publishing company. Toliver says the grant was a seed that not only assisted him financially, but an unseen intervention that confirmed that he belonged. A native of Milwaukee, he is an inspiring author and speaker residing in Minneapolis.
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TRUSTGIVING: Oyate Wacinyapin/Russell Means November 10, 1939 ”“ October 22, 2012
By Laura Waterman Witttstock
Russell Means died Monday, October 22, just weeks before his 73rd birthday.
”¦“complex man”
Like all other leaders throughout history, Means was a complex man, hard to understand at those times when he seemed to be reckless or unaware of the effect he was having on those close to him.
”¦“single purpose..safeguard promises of treaties”¦”
Yet from a distance, he had an astonishingly brilliant character, unafraid above all, but also willing to put himself at the center of controversy. He seemed to have a single purpose ”“ to safeguard the promises of treaties with tribes, most especially his own Oglala Lakota nation ”“ but in a greater sense, all native people.
Rushmore and Mayflower Protests
Throughout his public life, which began in 1970 when he moved from San Francisco to Cleveland, Ohio and started his association with the American Indian Movement (AIM) Means only knew one direction: forward. In those days, there was strong interest in bringing the symbols of American history to the attention of the general public in a way that revealed the hundreds of years of pain and loss to the American Indian body and spirit those icons stood for. In 1970, he went to Mount Rushmore to take over that national monument and he went to Plymouth Rock to take over a replica of the Mayflower.… Read the rest “TRUSTGIVING: Oyate Wacinyapin/Russell Means November 10, 1939 ”“ October 22, 2012”
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