June 28, 1934 ”“ September 1, 2016 Knowles Dougherty Remembered

A Love Letter BY ROBERT ALBEE

I doubt that many Alley readers have been actually invited to a funeral or a memorial by the deceased”¦ That”'s kind of what happened to many of us, who attended a huge September 17th gathering to honor and remember Knowles Dougherty at the Guild Hall of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis. He wrote: “This happening will take place whether I am able to make it or not.” (He passed two weeks before on September 1st.)What an honor and joy it has been to share the same neighborhood street”” just a block down from Knowles Dougherty! At age 82, he planned a Thanks To You party to invite all those he had known and even grown up with, to one-last-shindig!

We were greeted with a wide range of musical offerings ranging from Sara Olsen”'s taiko drumming, to choral numbers by duets, quartets, and sextets”” all accompanied by “heavy hors d”'oeuvres”. And then, we were offered gifts including many books Knowles published about cross-country and running, as well as neatly-tied stacks of Provoking Thoughts, his periodical magazine “devoted to the thinker in all of us,” for which he had served as editor some years past.… Read the rest “June 28, 1934 ”“ September 1, 2016 Knowles Dougherty Remembered”

April 28, 1943 ”“ August 1, 2016 Jim Northrup Remembered

By Laura Waterman Wittstock

The early 1970s were an important time for American Indian journalism and one of its favorite pastimes was to take satirical looks at contemporary life in the varied communities across the United States, known as “Indian Country.” Federal lawmaking and policy began to flower, so it was natural for the American Indian Press Association to locate in Washington, D.C. This national news service began in 1970 and sent weekly news reporting out by mail to over 150 American Indian print newspapers and newsletters. They, too, were proliferating and could support the news service.

It isn”'t clear who came up with the handle, but an erstwhile Indian everyman became known as “Luke Warmwater.” Sometimes he was an Indian journalist, and sometimes he was just the foil of the many jokes about representations of those inept individuals who resided on the ends of the political spectrum. Then he died, as that phase of Indian journalism died and a new phase emerged sometime in the 1980s.

Then in 1993, Walking the Rez Road was published and with the book, the character “Luke Warmater” reemerged, now to be remembered forever in the work of Ojibwe writer Jim Northrup. He died on August 1, 2016 from kidney cancer.… Read the rest “April 28, 1943 ”“ August 1, 2016 Jim Northrup Remembered”