John Trudell
John Trudell
John Trudellwas a Native American author, poet, actor, musician, and political activist. He was the spokesperson for the United Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as Radio Free Alcatraz. During most of the 1970s, he served as the chairman of the American Indian Movement, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth15 February 1946
CountryUnited States of America
freedoms males owned people
You go back and you read your Constitution. You read your Declaration of Independence. And you will see that the only people who could decide these freedoms were white males who owned property, and all the rest of us were excluded.
people
White people don't seem to have many Elders. They do have a lot of oldsters.
interest native people realities younger
I have a real interest in working with younger Native artists. I think it's a very important way for Native people to communicate the realities of our culture and remember our ancestors.
expand music people room ways
I find there is room in music to talk with music. It may expand ways people can participate with music. It doesn't sound hokey or like some kind of voice-over.
cannot change chooses control economic hands intention meaning minority people sick social until
We cannot change the political system, we cannot change the economic system, we cannot change the social system, until the people control the land, and then we take it out of the hands of that sick minority that chooses to pervert the meaning and the intention of humanity.
art culture lives longer people rely society truth
When one lives in a society where people can no longer rely on the institutions to tell them the truth, the truth must come from culture and art.
people
I don't want to tell people how to remember me. I want people to remember me as they remember me.
years worry people
I've never not been pleased with one of my albums. I figure because it's spoken word, there will be people who relate to it, and people who don't, so I don't worry about any of that. I've been doing it for over twenty years. I've always written because it was something I had to do, never for the glory.
writing people observation
A lot of my writing is basically about observation, and things that I've seen, either through personal experiences or the experiences of people around me, or society at large.
white america people
When I go around in America and I see the bulk of the white people, they do not feel oppressed; they feel powerless [. . .] and we understand the psychological genocide that they have already inflicted upon their own people
native-american people humans
We’re not Indians and we’re not Native Americans. We’re older than both concepts. We’re the people, we’re the human beings.
art creates form identities mimic mixing musical native point remains third using
The whole point is to take from our native culture and from contemporary culture without using one art form to mimic the other, so that our native identity remains the native identity, the contemporary identity remains the contemporary identity, and the mixing of these two musical identities creates a third musical identity.
everybody poetry pull
Everybody interprets things differently with their own perception, and I want poetry to pull out of them their own feelings.
emotional extension music musical song starts written
Every song I've ever written always starts with the words because I want the music to be the musical extension of the feelings of the words, and not the words being the emotional extension of the feeling of the music.