BEYOND "BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE"
        
              This past week my son, Ethan, was writing a book report on
        Dee Brown's historical text, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. 
        After reading the book and writing his report, Ethan seemed to be
        pleased with his results.  I asked him what he thought of the
        book.  
              "Well, I was a little depressed after reading how the
        Indians were treated," he said.  "In each of the chapters, Dee
        Brown described over and over again the white man's mistreatment
        of the Native Americans."
              I first read Bury My Heart in 1968 when I was 22 years old. 
        After reading it, I remember going into a fit of depression for
        about a week.  I could not fathom how white people could be so
        unfair.  
              In the preface to the edition I read, an unknown Native
        American was quoted as saying, "The white man made us many
        promises, but there was only one promise that he kept.  He
        promised to take our land and he did."
              If you have never read the book, I highly recommend it.  It
        is as an example of an alternative historical perspective.  Many
        times in the past few years we have been exposed to new
        perspectives on history by writers who have researched different
        eras in our past and given us new information to process.  
              Certainly, Bury My Heart is one of these.  It is interesting
        to note that one of the few memorials that exists in the Black
        Hills of South Dakota is not a monument to the Native Americans
        slaughtered at Wounded Knee.  No, there is instead a statue
        commemorating Colonel George Armstrong Custer.  
              In the 1970's, Dustin Hoffman starred in a movie entitled
        "Little Big Man."  If any of you ever saw it, Little Big Man was
        121 year old man who survived the Battle of Little Big Horn at
        which Custer and his entire army were slaughtered by the Sioux. 
        He recounts his entire life one evening to a historian who has
        come to interview him about Custer.  Needless to say, he does not
        portray Custer as any hero, but a pompous, arrogant, butcher.  In
        one compelling scene on a reservation, Custer's army rides in and
        destroys an entire tribe.  Little Big Man's wife and children are
        killed.  He watches from the safety of a riverbank as women,
        children, and horses are methodically slain by the army.  
              Many historical events in our history demand a review.  Last
        year, I read another text entitled, Parting the Waters-A History
        of the Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1963, by Taylor Branch. 
        It is a 900 page long tour de force that took me about six months
        to read.  I was amazed at the amount of vacillation the Kennedy
        White House displayed, and especially Bobby Kennedy, in assisting
        the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement throughout the South. 
        We often believe that Kennedy and his people were staunch
        supporters of the movement, but the author, using some
        extraordinary research methods, revealed this not to be true. 
        What really struck me was the role our own current senator,
        Harris Wofford, played in the movement.  He, along with Sergeant
        Shriver, another top Kennedy aide, were two of King's and other
        leaders greatest supporters.  Wofford attempted to intervene at
        every level with the Kennedy's on behalf of the movement leaders. 
        In most instances, his efforts were rebuffed because they were
        not politically correct.
              This seems to be the condition of the new scholarship in
        this nation.  Only in the past 20 years with the birth of the
        Information Age, are many events being studied in much finer
        detail.  I believe this is to our benefit as Americans.  I am not
        advocating that we destroy our past, but that we review it and
        make sure that what we teach our progeny is as near to historical
        fact as possible.
              We might consider this the beginning of the 21st Century
        version of an American Renaissance.  Men and women of letters are
        using modern technologies to research the past and provide us
        with a new perspective.  The task is to separate myth from fact. 
        This task is not always easy, but in light of the amount of
        distortion present surrounding many of the events in our history,
        it is certainly a necessary one.  
              Now that some of the myriad documents surrounding the
        Assassination of President John F. Kennedy are available to the
        public, I am sure there will be a plethora of new books written
        with more information describing that tragic moment in our
        history.  The verdict is still out as to whether or not the
        information will support or dispel a "conspiracy to cover up" any
        plot to assassinate Kennedy.  We shall see.
              The Information Age is truly democratizing America and the
        other nations of the world.  No longer is it necessary to be
        wealthy in order to have access to information.  VCR's, VHS movie
        cameras, computers, national databases available via the
        household phone line, FAX machines, cable television and
        satellite communication networks are at the disposal of the
        common man and woman.  
              We live in exciting times.  In a mere six years we shall
        close out another millennium and enter into an entirely new era
        in the history of human kind.  
              I don't know about you, but I plan on sticking around as
        long as possible to see just what unfolds, and if medical
        research continues as it has in the past few years, we may all
        live to become centenarians.