The Spirit of Jim Thorpe
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To The Best Of Our Knowledge
02-08 20:00203
全文概览
Jim Thorpe, born in 1887, stands as an emblematic figure for Native American athletes, embodying resilience and excellence amidst racism and discrimination. His accomplishments in various sports, including football, baseball, and Olympic track and field, illuminate a path of success despite facing barriers. Notably, his Olympic gold medals were later rescinded due to playing semi-professional baseball, a common practice then. Thorpe's legacy has transcended his lifetime, inspiring new generations of Native American activists, artists, and athletes, who find pride and motivation in his story. The contentious handling of his remains, appropriated by the town of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, further complicates his narrative, leading to a struggle for his family and the Sac and Fox Nation to secure a traditional burial. The dialogue reflects on Thorpe's life, emphasizing themes of perseverance, racial struggle, and the crucial representation for Native American youth. His story underscores the ongoing relevance of indigenous athletes' contributions to sports and society, advocating for recognition and respect for Native American heritage.
Jim Thorpe, born in 1887, stands as an emblematic figure for Native American athletes, embodying resilience and excellence amidst racism and discrimination. His accomplishments in various sports, including football, baseball, and Olympic track and field, illuminate a path of success despite facing barriers. Notably, his Olympic gold medals were later rescinded due to playing semi-professional baseball, a common practice then. Thorpe's legacy has transcended his lifetime, inspiring new generations of Native American activists, artists, and athletes, who find pride and motivation in his story. The contentious handling of his remains, appropriated by the town of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, further complicates his narrative, leading to a struggle for his family and the Sac and Fox Nation to secure a traditional burial. The dialogue reflects on Thorpe's life, emphasizing themes of perseverance, racial struggle, and the crucial representation for Native American youth. His story underscores the ongoing relevance of indigenous athletes' contributions to sports and society, advocating for recognition and respect for Native American heritage.
00:00
00:00
Celebrating Jim Thorpe: A Legacy of Athletic Excellence and Resilience
A tribute to one of history's most exceptional athletes, known for achievements in pro football, baseball, and the Olympics, who overcame daily racism and discrimination.
00:47
00:47
Celebrating Jim Thorpe: America's Greatest All-Around Athlete
Despite facing racism, a Native American athlete excelled in multiple sports, including pro football, Olympic competitions, and Major League Baseball, earning praise from peers and a former president.
02:42
02:42
Jim Thorpe's Enduring Legacy as a Native American Athletic Icon
Jim Thorpe's significant influence on Native American representation, particularly in sports, inspires contemporary artists and youth, leading to renewed interest in his life and achievements.
04:23
04:23
Jim Thorpe: A Legacy of Athleticism and Native American Resilience
The dialogue explores the life and achievements of a renowned athlete known for excelling in multiple sports, including winning gold medals in the decathlon and playing professional football and baseball. His story is used as a lens to examine the Native American experience and the broader narrative of race relations in America.
06:29
06:29
Pathway by Lightning: Illuminating the Native American Experience
The discussion explores the significance of the book 'Bright Path,' also known as 'Pathway by Lightning,' highlighting its role as a guiding light in understanding Native American experiences.
06:55
06:55
The Path of Pali by Lightning: A Life of Accomplishment and Perseverance
Born amidst a thunderstorm, a Native individual was named Pali by Lightning, reflecting both energy and danger. Viewed as the reincarnation of a great warrior, he navigated a life marked by significant achievements, challenges, and resilience under the white man's rule in the 1890s.
08:25
08:25
Jim Thorpe's Journey Through Forced Assimilation and Athletic Triumph
Amid oppressive government control over Native American lives, Jim Thorpe, sent to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, excelled in sports under a program aimed at cultural assimilation. Recognized for his talent by coach Pop Warner, Thorpe found freedom and achievement on the athletic fields, competing against descendants of military leaders who fought against his ancestors.
11:02
11:02
Jim Thorpe's Remarkable Achievements at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics
In July 1912, at the 6th revival of the modern Olympic Games in Stockholm, an American Indian athlete excelled in multiple events, notably winning both the pentathlon and the decathlon despite facing unexpected challenges, such as losing his shoes on the last day.
13:26
13:26
Jim Thorpe's Defining Moments: A Photo and an Encounter with Royalty
A photo captures the intensity of a victorious athlete moments after his win, while a legendary exchange with a king cements his status as the world's greatest athlete.
14:17
14:17
The Complex Legacy of an Iconic Athlete: Separating Myth from Reality
The dialogue explores the struggle of separating the truth from myth and stereotypes surrounding an iconic athlete. Despite achieving superstardom, the athlete faced challenges including having their Olympic medals stripped six months after a triumphant victory, highlighting the enduring impact of myths and stereotypes on their legacy.
16:26
16:26
Jim Thorpe's Amateur Status Scandal
An athlete played baseball under his real name before the Olympics, leading to a scandal when his past was exposed. Despite others' similar actions, he faced repercussions, highlighting the hypocrisy and targeting he experienced.
19:00
19:00
Jim Thorpe's Unjust Struggle Against Discrimination in Sports
The dialogue highlights the unfair treatment and scapegoating faced by a renowned athlete due to discriminatory practices and rules applied selectively in the sports world. Despite significant achievements, including Olympic success, the athlete endured the stripping of accolades for actions that were common among peers, emphasizing the pervasive injustices and stereotypes of the time.
20:08
20:08
Rediscovering Jim Thorpe: Justice, Resistance, and Indigenous Legacy
After years of pressure, Jim Thorpe's gold medals were restored in 2022, highlighting the long-standing injustice faced by Native Americans. A new generation of activists and artists, inspired by Thorpe's story, grapples with anger and history, emphasizing the importance of remembering and resistance. Talpa, a hip hop artist, channels this sentiment into his album 'The Story of Jim Thorpe,' reflecting on indigenous excellence and the struggles since colonial times.
23:12
23:12
The Controversial Journey and Final Resting Place of a Legendary Athlete
During the fourth day of traditional Native American funeral ceremonies for a renowned athlete in 1953, his widow interrupted, claiming his body with legal documentation. Despite his expressed wish for a traditional burial, she took his body, eventually settling a deal with a Pennsylvania town to rename it after him and erect a mausoleum, transforming his final resting place into a tourist attraction against his cultural wishes.
27:36
27:36
The Fight Against Racist Native American Mascots and the Legacy of Indigenous Rights Activism
The dialogue discusses the decades-long fight against racist Native American mascots and team names in American sports, highlighting the genocidal histories associated with these names. It mentions significant changes achieved, including the renaming of over 2000 mascots across various educational levels, attributing the momentum for change to the persistence and resilience of Native communities and their ancestors. The conversation also touches on the re-emergence of Native American figures as heroes and role models for new generations of activists and artists.
30:59
30:59
Discovering Jim Thorpe's Legacy Through Hip Hop
A person shares their journey of discovering Jim Thorpe's achievements as a Native American athlete while exploring their own background, which includes overcoming adversity and finding passion in rapping. They detail how this discovery inspired them to create music honoring Thorpe's legacy.
34:42
34:42
Struggling with Fame: An Artist's Battle with Addiction and Self-Discovery
The dialogue delves into an artist's struggle with addiction, the quest for validation through media attention, and the transformative journey towards sobriety and self-acceptance, highlighting the impact of role models and the pressure of public perception.
35:34
35:34
The Legacy of Jim Thorpe: From Olympic Glory to the Battle for His Remains
The discussion explores the profound impact of Jim Thorpe's achievements on future generations, highlighting his struggles post-sporting career, involvement in Hollywood, and the legal fight to repatriate his remains.
37:06
37:06
The Controversial Afterlife of a Renowned Athlete's Remains
A celebrated athlete's body, posthumously sold as a tourist attraction, sparked a legal battle between his family, his indigenous nation, and a Pennsylvania town over the right to a traditional burial.
37:49
37:49
Controversy Over the Ownership and Exploitation of Native American Artifacts and Remains
A discussion highlights the persistent issue of towns profiting from and claiming ownership over Native American body parts and bodies, illustrating a historical pattern of disrespect and exploitation.
38:58
38:58
The Struggle for Repatriation: Recognizing Indigenous Rights Over Ancestral Remains
The dialogue highlights the significance of repatriation laws initiated in 1967, aiming to reclaim Indigenous human rights after centuries of grave robbing and desecration under US law. It details the harrowing practices, including the Indian Crania study by the US Army Surgeon General in the late 1800s, which treated Indigenous remains as archaeological resources rather than honoring them as human. The discussion underscores the push to return Jim Thorpe's remains to tribal lands as a pivotal moment in recognizing and humanizing Indigenous peoples.
41:17
41:17
Uncovering the Heartbreaking Truth of Jim Thorpe's Legacy and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School
The dialogue delves into the tragic history of America's treatment of indigenous people, focusing on the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and its impact on children, as well as the story of Jim Thorpe's life and the ongoing efforts to repatriate his remains to his homeland.
43:33
43:33
Legal Battle Over Jim Thorpe's Remains Continues
The family of Jim Thorpe won a court decision to reclaim his body, but a federal appeals court reversed it. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case, leaving the decision to the town of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
44:21
44:21
Restoring Honor and Rights: A Cheyenne's Optimistic Fight for Justice
A Cheyenne individual discusses their ongoing efforts to restore rights and honor, inspired by tribal teachings emphasizing optimism and perseverance despite seemingly hopeless situations.
45:59
45:59
The Legacy of Indigenous Excellence: Perseverance Amidst Tragedy
The discussion explores the life of a renowned individual marked by both remarkable achievements and personal struggles, highlighting the concept of indigenous excellence and resilience against life's adversities.
48:21
48:21
Celebrating Native American Resilience Through the Story of Jim Thorpe
The discussion highlights the shift from defining Native American communities by their struggles to recognizing their resilience, innovation, and achievements, exemplified by the life of Jim Thorpe.
发言人 100:00
Hi, it's an. Today, on to the best of our knowledge, we're celebrating one of the greatest athletes the world has ever known.
发言人 300:10
The greatest athlete in the world.
发言人 200:11
one of the greatest athletes of all time, just that much better than everybody else.
发言人 100:15
a pro football player, major league baseball player, gold medal winner in the Olympics. His name was Jim Thorpe, and because he was Native American, he battled racism and discrimination every day of his life. It's been 70 years since Jim Thorpe died, but today he's inspiring a new generation of activists, artists, and athletes. I'll tell you his story after this.
发言人 200:51
From WPR?
发言人 100:58
I'm an strange amps and welcome to the best of our knowledge. Today we celebrate an American icon, the greatest all around athlete America has ever produced.
发言人 201:11
Ladies and gentlemen.
发言人 101:12
Jim Falk.
发言人 201:13
all American.
发言人 101:18
Jim Thorpe was a Native American athlete who died 70 years ago and is still one of the greatest athletes who ever lived. Maybe the greatest. A legendary pro football player, Olympic gold medals for the us and a Major League Baseball player.
发言人 201:35
I thought it was a hell of a ball player.
发言人 101:38
MLB coach Al Sha.
发言人 201:40
he could hit a ball as far as anybody. He could run as good as anybody. He was one of the passes men I ever saw in the run and run in the basin. He was fast, man, was a great athlete, he could do anything.
发言人 101:54
Former President Dwight DD Eisenhower .
发言人 202:00
actually played against .
发言人 402:03
Thorpe in .
发言人 202:05
college without the slightest horn. He put the foot on his foot and kick it out 60 yards in Pun there. No trouble ago we were standing back there like 75 yards, boom, all firing or boom down there. That's always good. You throw the ball, you can run, you can totally do anything.
发言人 102:27
He could do anything except outrun racism. As a Native American athlete, Jim Thorpe proved over and over again that he was better than anyone else .
发言人 202:41
in the world.
发言人 102:48
Today, Jim Thorpe is having a moment.
发言人 402:52
He's important to me as a Native man and as a Native youth when I was growing up, just because that representation .
发言人 102:58
Talpa is an Anishinaabe and Oneida hip hop artist enrolled on the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota. And for him, Jim Thorpe was everything.
发言人 403:19
As a kid, I didn't see Native men or Native women on the big screen too often, especially not in an athletic sense. Like I was watching the NFL, the NBA, never seen any Native superstar athletes. So I got curious and started doing some research and found out about Jim Thorpe in my school library. And that inspired me hearing about and being an Olympic athlete and everything, even though he's been gone at this point for a long time, I needed something, somebody to look up to who was native. And that was important.
发言人 203:56
For me as a kid video.
发言人 104:00
there's a feature length film in the works. There's a new best-selling biography out the greatest athlete in the world.
发言人 204:08
Than?
发言人 104:11
He's popping up in Netflix documentaries and in Hulu's hit series Reservation Dogs.
发言人 504:18
It doesn't surprise me at all that there are Native kids running around with Jim Thorpe, tshitsher.
发言人 104:25
Patty Lowe directs the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research at Northwestern University, and she's a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.
发言人 504:34
I think young native kids finding somebody like Jim Thorpe are thinking, hey I'd like to be able to do something like that and really distinguish myself in some awesome way and have people write songs and write books about me. 70 years after my achievements, I think almost any person who follows sports knows the name Jim Thorpe and understands that his story is really part of a larger narrative about America and how we've come to deal with race relations.
发言人 105:14
So who was Jim Thorpe? Where did he come from? How did he achieve what he did? Here's Shannon Henry kleber with Thorpe Hes biographer David .
发言人 205:24
Marinus .
发言人 505:26
What originally drew you to Thorpe? I know you've obviously written about politicians and your sports biographies of Roberto Clement and Vince Lombardi.
发言人 105:36
what drew you to Jim Thorpe at this moment in time?
发言人 305:40
I'm always looking for the dramatic arc of a story, just a great story, and then for a way to illuminate history and sociology through that story.
发言人 305:51
Jim Thorpe is both an incredible story of perhaps the greatest athlete ever, someone who did things that were unparalleled. No one before had won gold medals in the decathlon and beath falon been an all theam park football player, the first president of the National Football League and a Major League Baseball player. And he was also, by the way, a great ballroom dancer and could play ice hockey. And people said he was even good at marbles. You know, he could do sort of anything. So that's part of it. But was also most important to me was to be able to use his life as a lens, looking at the Native American experience. And so was that combination that drew me to Jim Thorpe.
发言人 606:30
Well, yeah.
发言人 506:31
let's talk more about the Native American experience. The name of your book as paphia by Lightning, which is a translation of how do you pronounce it as wahoo.
发言人 306:39
hu, hu? It's most commonly shortened to Bright Path, but I saw a translation of Pathway by Lightning, and I thought, that's illuminating.
发言人 506:49
Yeah, was that like a North Star for you, his name as you were working on the .
发言人 306:53
Absolutely, it was in so many different ways.
发言人 307:05
He was born in 1887 in a little cabin near the North Canadian River in Oklahoma. The reason he got that name, I think.
发言人 207:13
was literal.
发言人 307:16
There was a thunderstorm along the North Canadian River the night that he and his, by the way, he was a twin, his twin brother Charlie, and he were born. So that's where he got the name Pali by lightning. But aha. But I viewed it as both a description of this incredible. I mean, lightning reflects sort of energy and electricity. It also describes something that is dangerous in a way. And then the word path I like so much because the story of Jim's life is a path of great accomplishment, difficulties. And perseverance.
发言人 308:01
His mother always told him that he was the reincarnation of Blackhawk, who was the greatest S Fox warrior. And so Jim sort of always lived with that in his mind, that he was following the footsteps of Blackhawk.
发言人 108:18
By the time he was growing up, though, it was the 1890s and Native people were living under white man's rules.
发言人 508:26
It was very oppressive.
发言人 108:30
Patty Lowe, again.
发言人 508:33
the government had the right to tell you where you could live, the religions that you could participate in, and native religions were not among them. Native governments were illegal. They had the power to tell parents where they could. They had to send their children. They could arbitrarily decide to send the children to boarding school. Every aspect of a native person's life was controlled by the Commission on Indian Affairs, later the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which during this time was located in the War Department, which tells you something.
发言人 109:11
Jim Thorpe was among the Native children sent to those Indian boarding schools. He ran away from one and then wound up at the most famous, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Its founders' motto was kill the Indian, save the man. The mission to Americanize Native children through a military style program of forced cultural assimilation. Carlisle's coach Pop Warner spotted Jim's athletic talent, first in track and field, then on the football field and the baseball diamond. In those days, sports was one of the few paths to mainstream achievement even available to Native people.
发言人 509:56
You know, these athletic fields were the only place where native people were free to express themselves, to compete against themselves, to compete against white men, some of them the sons and grandsons of the military leaders that had fought against those native men's parents and grandparents. So imagine Jim Thorpe, whose great grandfather, the blackhaw, was ruthlessly pursued by the American military, and now he's playing against teams from West Point. You know, I can't imagine what must have been going through his head. It must have been, he must have had some pretty interesting thoughts before those games.
发言人 110:56
Whatever fueled him, everyone who saw him agreed. Jim Thorpe was unstoppable.
发言人 511:06
Sometimes he would score all the points for his team because he was a running back, he was a kicker, he punted, he dropped, kicked 70 yard field goals. It's really, really remarkable what he was able to accomplish.
发言人 111:28
It is July 1912. King Gustav of Sweden officiates at the opening of the newly built Olympic Stadium in Stockholm. It is the 6th revival of the modern Olympic Games. It was the year Hannes Colin in of Finland won three gold medals in the 5000 m, 10000 m and cross country. But his achievement was surpassed by an American Indian, Jim Thorpe, who won the five event. Pentaploid then would attempt to win the first Olympic ever.
发言人 112:04
Jim started training for the Olympics in the spring of 1912, just a few months before the games began. He'd always been a fast runner, but now he added jumps, hurdles, the shot put, pole vaulting, javelin, discus, hammer. He'd be competing in the five event pentalonia in the first ever decathlon, the most grueling contest in Olympic history. He would win them both, outstripping every other competitor and despite an unexpected handicap.
发言人 512:36
So he's competing in Stockholm and he's doing really well. I think it was the last day. And Thorpe was about to do the high jump and his shoes are missing. Somebody may take them or somebody walked off with them mistakenly, but he doesn't have any shoes. And so popcorn finds two mismatched shoes, they're not the right size, so he's got to adjust with a couple of extra socks on one and some jury rig cleats. And I think he had to wear two socks on his left foot. And he still performs and he winds up winning. That's a pretty extraordinary story. I think .
发言人 113:27
there's a photo from that day, must have been taken shortly after he won. Jim is standing on the field, still in his track clothes, looking directly, almost challengingly at the camera. You can see muscles clenched in his face and on his feet. Sure enough, two mismatched shoes. There's another moment from that day, also part of the Jim Thorpe legend, about the moment he stepped up to receive his two gold medals from the king of Sweden, David Marinus.
发言人 313:58
What transpired between Thorpe and King Gustav V during those 15 seconds would become a defining scene of Jim's life. The accepted story goes that the king greeted Thorpe and English by saying, you, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world. To which Jim replied.
发言人 514:15
thanks King.
发言人 314:16
thanks king.
发言人 514:17
Totally inappropriate to address arroy that way, kind of endea.
发言人 314:24
But the question arises, how is this conversation known to have happened? Was it a reasonable, if slightly imprecise, description of what was said or was it myth?
发言人 114:41
That's the thing about iconic figures. It can be hard to separate the person from the myth. But how different is a myth really from a stereotype? In the press, Jim could be cast as both a heroic athlete and an ignorant rube, brave warrior, or quote unquote dumb Indian. The romantic myth and the derogatory stereotype wrapped together, he would be dogged by both throughout his career.
发言人 315:10
Some of the myths are small, you know, like the myth that Jim Thorpe Pitt home runs into three different states in one game, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma, while playing in Texarkana. It's a great story, but it's geographic impossibility. Throughout his life, he had to deal with people who romanticized and diminished him. At the same time, people who helped him rise and then turned away from him at the times of his crisis. So I would say the largest myth I deal with is the myth that the white fathers know best.
发言人 115:51
The legend of Jim Thorpe was born in Stockholm, whose performance there catapulted him to superstardom, but the events that followed would haunt him for the rest of his life. He arrived back in the UA hero with a ticker tape parade down Broadway and national acclaim. Six months later, the International Olympic Committee stripped him of his medals.
发言人 516:18
Could you tell that story a little bit? Because I don't think a lot of people know. I mean, they know he won gold medals in Stockholm and they were taken away, but why?
发言人 316:26
Yes, well, he played Bush league baseball for two summers in the Eastern Carolina League. This was in 19 oh 9 and 1910, two years before the Olympics.
发言人 316:38
It was a period when literally hundreds of college athletes were playing summer baseball for money. Most of them were doing it under aliases. Dwight Eisenhower played in the Kansas State League under the name Wilson. There were so many aliases in the Eastern Carolina League that the joke was, they called it the Pocahontas League because everyone was named John Smith or another line was.
发言人 317:04
There are more aliases in the Eastern Carolina League than there are aliases for gunman in New York City, but Jim Thorpe played under the name Jim Thorpe. He never hid it. His name was in the paper in North Carolina for two summers almost every day, but nonetheless, after he won his gold medals, a story broke in the Worcester Telegram in Massachusetts, interviewing one of Thorpe hes old coaches from the Eastern Carolina League. And it just broke into this huge scandal from there when the guy said that Jim Thorpe played for him.
发言人 317:37
All of the people who were important to Jim's rise lied about their knowledge of what he was doing to save their own reputations. So Pop Warner, his coach at Carlisle, knew exactly what Thorpe had done. He had sent many of his players down to play baseball before they were scouted by one of Warner's closest friends. Warner met with Jim several times during the period when he was playing baseball and not at Carlisle, and yet when the story broke, he said he didn't know anything about it. So these people, you know, sort of the white saviors, people who were promoting the purity of amateurism, lied about Thorpe to save their own reputations.
发言人 318:22
George SS Patton was on that Olympic team, he was in the us Army, he participated in the modern pentalonia, which had five events that were all military oriented and he was getting paid by the Army to practice that for a year before he went to the Olympics. But he wasn't called an amateur. The entire Swedish team was allowed to take off from their jobs for six months before the Olympics and just train and still paid full time. They were so in so many ways Thorpe was victimized and let down by people around him.
发言人 118:57
do you think that he was targeted?
发言人 519:00
I mean, it just seems so many other people didn't have to play by those rules, but they wanted him to play by those rules.
发言人 319:06
I don't know if he was targeted so much as he was victimized by it because he was an easy scapegoat for everybody so that when Pop Warner, for instance, when the scandal broke, Warner actually wrote a letter for Thorpe under Thorpe Hes name explaining what happened. And the basic defense was, well, he's just a, you know, lo the poor Indian. He's just an ignorant native, which was wrong in every respect and insulting. So it was easy to have Jim take the fall.
发言人 519:37
but I think his story of accomplishing the impossible and then having it taken from you as he did, distinguishing yourself at the Olympics, having your medals stripped from you for transgressions that nearly every major athlete was doing at that time in history, I think those are the kinds of injustices that really resonate with people.
发言人 120:09
It wasn't until the summer of 2022, after years of pressure from his family, that the International Olympics Committee finally restored Jim Thorpe hes gold medals, 110 years after he won them.
发言人 520:22
I was happy for Thorpe Parks family, and I know that there were people in the Native American sports world that were finally satisfied that that had been returned. You know, for me, it was just a reminder of how injustice had worked for such a long time.
发言人 120:43
Sometimes the best form of resistance is remembering. Today, a younger generation of native activists and artists are rediscovering the story of Jim Thorpe.
发言人 420:53
As I was writing this album, there were definitely moments of anger .
发言人 120:57
to all .
发言人 421:00
about all the stuff that Jim Dop had to go through, thinking about the boarding school history and how they started and we had to get our hair chopped off and we had to speak, look dressed, walk, talk like civilized white people, basically, yeah, there was some anger there. And that's been the case throughout my whole life learning about native history, you know, not even just this album. So yeah.
发言人 121:30
Talpa is a hip hop artist. Anishinaabe and Oneida enrolled on the Leach Lake Reservation in Minnesota. His new album is called The Story of Jim Thorpe.
发言人 421:47
Recipe Rest in peace. The ancestors that came before him not aiming for the top. What you aiming for? Way to since Columbus came on shore and head to your head. Nowadays we just aiming for.
发言人 422:11
It.
发言人 422:22
Our poor fourth and goal against all your all his indigenous excellence when we touch them.
发言人 122:29
Coming up, if what happened to Jim Thorpe during his life makes you angry, wait until you hear what happened after he died. It's a story you could not imagine, not in a million years. I'm strange champs, it's to the best of our knowledge, from Wisconsin Public Radio and Prx.
发言人 123:01
From the story of his birth to those mismatched shoes at the Olympics, Jim Thorpe has become a legend. And there are conflicting stories about him even after his death.
发言人 623:14
Can you take me back to Jim Thorpe hes funeral in 1953? Can you describe what happened then?
发言人 223:24
They were having the fourth day of ceremonies.
发言人 123:30
Native American activist Suzanne SCN harchin talking with Steve Paulson.
发言人 223:36
The second folks have their journey to the ancestors ceremony. Each day stands for something after everything's been done on the previous three days. The fourth day is where his name is returned, so that means it can be used by other people. Again, it's a good name, can be used by someone else. So that ceremony was in process when his widow, his third wife. Came in with large men and some sort of legal paper saying. We can take him. And people picked him up in the casket and took him out and put him in a car, her car, and she drove off.
发言人 224:58
Thorpe had been through many, many ceremonies for other people, of course, and he wanted that ceremony for himself, a traditional S and Fox ceremony. That was his wish, and he expressed it to all sorts of family members, to friends, to wives, and that was his plan. He was always going to go home. She put him on ice. She kept buying ice, putting ice inside the casket, draining the casket, driving around. She drove to Pennsylvania. She, I guess, had in her mind that people there would like to pay her for his body. They offered her money and she made a bargain with them that they would change the name to Jim Thorpe. They would build a mausoleum for him and happiness would re.
发言人 226:12
And on the side of the highway as you're entering, Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, is. A mausoleum. And it's not in very fine taste. It's little garish, but I'm sure it attracts the casual tourist who's passing by and makes them wonder, oh, what's that so? He's a tourist trap.
发言人 127:11
The appropriation not just of Jim Thorpe hes name, but of his actual body, his physical remains. It's so obviously a violation and a sickening one. You have to wonder how or why people didn't see that .
发言人 227:30
the star shine for you.
发言人 127:39
But then think about the backdrop. Think about American sports and the racist tradition of derogatory Native American mascots and team names. I'm not going to say them, but you know what I mean? Suzanne, harchin who, Cheyenne and Hidalgo, Muskogee, been leading the fight against them for decades? She says that those names have genocidal histories that are often hiding in plain sight, like, for example, the practice of paying bounty hunters to kill native people and accepting as proof of death their literal skin. In the nation's very capital. The NFL team had one of those names, and Suzanne led the fight that finally got them to change it to the Washington commanders, but not until 2022.
发言人 228:28
It was inevitable that the name would be changed. It was just a matter of when. It wasn't a matter of if. Yeah, and along the way, we've changed over 2000 of them.
发言人 628:41
2000 names of mascots of sports teams, you mean, or other kinds of names as well? Wow.
发言人 228:47
at the three junior school, middle school, high school, community college level, universities, colleges.
发言人 628:57
Let me ask about your role in this. You have been an activist for more than 50 years. Why are these changes happening now after all these years?
发言人 229:07
Well, because we're still here. We were supposed to be dead, gone, buried, forgotten, but because we're still here, it's kind of a bur under everyone's saddle and at some point you just can't ignore living human beings who are saying we have these treaties and we've kept them and you haven't. We have been moved, we've been pushed around, and at some point everyone has just said, enough's enough, we're not going to do this anymore because we have had really strong ancestors who have given their lives so that we could be here and really strong ancestors who have made us the people we are, who are here by saying, do this, don't let them do that, be this kind of person, be this kind of human being, don't accept this kind of treatment. And when you grow up with grandparents and parents and aunts and uncles who are talking to you in this way, you understand that it's on you.
发言人 130:35
In this long struggle for native rights, there is such a sense of generations holding hands, of messages and lessons passed down. And you can see that happening again today with the story of Gem Thorpe, with the way he's re-emerging as a hero and role model for a new generation of native activists and artists like the hip hop artist. Tpa, let's go back to Charles Monroe .
发言人 231:00
with him.
发言人 431:03
Do you remember that first time in the library where you started reading or saw a picture of that famous picture of Jim Thorpe in the Olympics? What was like the first time you were like, oh, my God, this guy is a Native American and he's a great athlete? Yeah, so I was living in a small town at the time called Redwood Falls with my family. And I was down in the library in the school, and I was doing some research, and I was doing some digging. And I found this book on Jim Thorpe. I'm like, okay, he's Olympic gold medalist. NFL Hall of Famer played major league baseball. All right?
发言人 431:40
I'm gon na look into this guy, you know? And I started doing a lot of research on him at that point, but it just felt inspiring to me you, because I had never heard of him before. Nobody ever told me about him. I just kind of had to figure out about him myself. It was powerful to find out that there was somebody out there like that who represented us.
发言人 432:01
Kicked back in my time machine, reminiscing. Everything was so promising. Simple as that.
发言人 432:06
Me, when survi feel like I was king, got the Pis granted, and I was high heat who's kneel down when I thought about the to me like God the great I about my highest be fell in love, I spoke out his knees. Then I learned thop I knew beast blow up and get the paper like go up the snake like my show up. I've showing up because I got peace. That was the gee effect my philosophy.
发言人 432:29
I'm curious about you though before we kind of go further with Jim Thor, what is your story like what's Tpa's story, how did you end up being a MC, make an album about Jim Thorpe, what's your path? Yeah, so I was born and raised and stuff, and yeah, just a little bit of my backstory, you know, grew up, didn't really know my dad too much, seen some pictures, me sucking on his toes when I was like one or two years old, but that was the extent of my knowledge of him, like I didn't really know of his existence beyond these funny pictures. I've seen met him a little bit later in life, about 9 years old, wasn't the greatest experience. I do know him now, and we have a good relationship, but just kind of preface him with that history and then growing up bouncing all over the place as a youth with my mom and my brothers and sister through foster homes, through women's shelters, because my mom had been in some abusive relationships, just that was kind of my background. I kind of grew up in a negative situation, but I always made the most of it with my friends. We would get out and play big games of football and I fell in love with football, which is how I found out about Jim Thorpe.
发言人 433:36
And then as I got older, about 14 years old, I started rapping, you know, I started freestyling for my friends, started writing little raps because I was watching MTV music videos, 106 in Park Freestyle Fridays on Bet. So I started getting some exposure to hip hop and rap, had some struggles with like alcohol for like 5, 6, 7 years. And then I got sober and I needed something to pick up. And I had all that free time open now. So I was like, all right, well I'm gon na try this wrap thing up because it's something that I've always been something I consider myself to be good at. So I started rapping and I got some beats from local producers, got some studio time, got into the old hip hop thing. And as I progressed the welded, I was like, well, you know, I connected back to Jim Thorpe and I made a song about him back about five years ago and I just think it's important to push his legacy if I can attach him to something like hip hop, it'll do a lot to make people know.
发言人 434:39
About. Them?
发言人 434:48
All I hear about his cheek, but the ball along the c-astral wish I could have seen you play ball on TV. I wish that you received the same. Not by you. The mass media has given all these other air fleets.
发言人 434:58
I just needed some great look. Like me, Jim Thorpe, you could be my Muhammad Ali, afflicted with addiction, alcoholic like Pete, No citing both spitting up in college like GS, my not that we probably both got B, you're the star RB. I skipped the small trees. When I finally got sober, I became an MC messing up on stage because I kept what people think I needed you on flu, I don't care what people think, See, for me to feel great, man, I needed that drink, graduated school and flu, the lake down and sink now, but got to be you for kids who want to be me. Damn, I mean, that's it, right? That's what this interview is totally about.
发言人 135:33
that's what your album is about.
发言人 435:34
I mean, now I got to be you for kids who want to be me. You're the legacy of Jim Thorpe.
发言人 235:42
right?
发言人 435:42
I mean, that's how it works, right? Yeah, I think that is how it works. You know, the so called the passing of the torch and so are all of the other people out there in the native community who are doing big things. We are the legacies of our ancestors and elders who did great things before us for sure.
发言人 136:03
Coming up, the legacy of Jim Thorpe and the legal battle to repatriate his remains. I'm an strange amps, and this is to the best of our knowledge, from Wisconsin Public Radio and Prx.
发言人 136:30
Our story of Jim Thorpe continues. The story of Olympic gold medals won and lost, of an incredible career in professional baseball and football, which inevitably came to an end in his later years. Jim Thorpe struggled to find work. Coaching jobs he dreamed of somehow never materialized. He had stents as a bouncer, security guard and ditch digger. And he finally wound up in Hollywood, mostly playing American Indian chiefs in Western. He did get to see a biopic made of his life starring Burt Lancaster.
发言人 437:05
Give me that.
发言人 237:07
Working, sweaty, trained to go to the Olympics, for what?
发言人 137:13
But by then he had slipped into alcoholism and he died destitute in 1953. At which point, as we heard, his third wife shows up at the funeral, kidnaps his body and sells it to a small town in Pennsylvania for use as a tourist attraction. There just aren't words. Jim's children and the Sac and Fox Nation took the town to court and demanded his body be returned to his homeland for a traditional burial, as he'd requested.
发言人 637:45
How did the town of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, respond?
发言人 137:50
This is Suzanne harjo again.
发言人 237:53
like stuck pigs. We have no intentions of letting him go. There's no reason for it. They really did not respond graciously at all, said he's ours. We bought him fair and square.
发言人 638:12
and has the town made money off of this, as far as you know, after all these decades?
发言人 238:17
I do not know, I would imagine they have because they fought tooth and nail to keep him there. He's their trophy. This is a time dishonored practice in America, taking native body parts and bodies and capturing them and somehow parading them. But I know that after a lot of our massacres and our people were mutilated and we're still recovering parts of our relatives, our ancestors from this kind of practice.
发言人 638:59
you said this is a big deal, this whole story of the push, the move, the campaign to return Jim Thorpe Hes remains to tribal lands in Oklahoma. Why is this such a big deal about Jim Thorpe in particular .
发言人 239:14
until 1989 when we got the repatriation laws that we started working on in 1967 by the way? We were considered under law archaeological resources of the United States of America. And we wanted to change that. We wanted to humanize ourselves like the rest of the world.
发言人 239:43
We've had the horrors of grave robbing and of people being taken out of their graves. And after being freshly buried and being beheaded, and then their bodies just left there. I mean, that happened under the color of law, under the Indian Crania study of the US Army Surgeon general of the late 1008 hundred S. I mean, there's a whole raft of Army officer reports, written reports in the National Anthropological Archives. One of them said, I waited until the cover of darkness, till the grieving family left the graveside, exhumed the body, and decapitated. What they would do is take the head, measure the skull, weigh the brain, and then dipped the whole thing in longeye. Well, note the measurements and send it as freight to Washington, to the Army surgeon general, or depending on what year it was, the Army Medical Museum and the Smithsonian.
发言人 240:56
Imagine the people coming back to that graveside the next day and finding there beheaded, headless loved one outside the grave. What would you think?
发言人 641:13
Oh, it I'm horrible. You can't even imagine that.
发言人 141:18
It's like a scene from a horror horror movie, except it really happened. America's genocidal war against indigenous people is one of history's worst atrocities on a scale so massive it's hard to wrap your mind, let alone your heart, around. That's why David Marinus wanted to write Jim Thorpe hes biography, because, as he told Shannon, sometimes it's the small details of history that can open up a bigger truth and help you take it in. For example.
发言人 341:51
I knew that he went to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, but I didn't really know the story of what those boarding schools did. The first set of Native Americans who went there were Lakota Sioux. These kids thought they were going there to die to show their bravery, and many of them did, in fact die. When I'm doing a book I'm always looking for those moments that sort of history washes over me, and that happened at Carlyle when I went to what is still the cemetery there for those Indian children. And there are 186 of them still there.
发言人 542:25
So the cemeteries there and you can read their names on .
发言人 342:29
the absolutely the, you know, sometimes it's the name that the school gave them and sometimes it's their native name only in the last several years have some of those children been repatriated to their homelands. It's run by the us military, now it's the Army War College, and for decades the War College was not allowing that, but now finally some repatriation is going on and some of the children are being repatriated to their homelands.
发言人 143:01
Which is all Jim Thorpe hes family is asking for? For him? For his body?
发言人 243:09
The public, the world had Jim Thorpe all his life. He was a public figure, and the family just had one role, and that was at the end, to carry out his wishes and to do it in the way that he would have been proud to have done for someone else.
发言人 143:34
The battle to reclaim Jim Thorpe hes body has a long legal history. His family won the right to get his body back in a us district court, but a federal appeals court sided with the town and reversed the decision. The Thorpe family petitioned the us Supreme Court, but it refused to hear the case. And so now the only way Jim Thorpe hes body will ever be returned to his homeland is if the town of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, does so voluntarily.
发言人 644:03
What do you think will happen to me? Do you think Jim Thorpe Hes remains will eventually return to S Fox tribal land?
发言人 244:10
I do, I do, because great things can't happen in that spot.
发言人 644:19
You're talking about the people in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
发言人 244:22
I am, I think at some point the younger people are going to say, I don't know what our parents and grandparents and their parents were thinking, but we can still be Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, but we don't have to hold on to his remains. Why do we have to behold him like he's a prisoner of war or .
发言人 144:48
a trophy?
发言人 644:49
The thing that I find? So I don't know remarkable about this history that you're describing is you've been working on these issues for years for you keep going, you don't give up, even when things probably look kind of hopeless. And I guess I sort of wonder where, how do you manage to carry on and keep fighting to restore your rights and the good name and all of that?
发言人 245:15
Well, it's my job to be optimistic. I'm Cheyenne and hidalga muskoge, and for the Cheyenne people, and instruction was provided to the people as a whole, that the nation shall be strong so long as the hearts of the women are not on the ground. And what that means is that we have a job to be optimistic. We have a job to do, a job to get things done and to believe that it will be done eventually because we're going to work to make it so.
发言人 245:58
Hey, y'all in it?
发言人 246:12
I hate? I hope you know I never wan na see you go. I hope you. Know you've always been the one? I .
发言人 346:32
think in a larger sense, the issue that I dealt with as a biographer is this a tragedy. And I decided that there were tragic elements to it, but that it wasn't. It was a story of perseverance. You know, how do you judge a life? How do you view a life? My late brother used to say that life is a series of sensations, and I sort of understand that. And Thorpe had some fabulous sensations throughout his life, so that's not tragic. I mean, you just think about all the people we encountered in his life, starting with playing football against Dwight Eisenhower, with Omar Bradley on the bench, going to the Olympics with George SS Patton, playing baseball with Christy matthewson traveling the world with Hall of Famers tri speaker, and Sam Crawford going out to Hollywood and acting with Bob Hope and being and a movie directed by Michael curtiz who directed Casablanca CA and having Bertha Lancaster play him.
发言人 347:36
You know, I think he had a lot of amazing sensations in his life and also some very difficult periods and he did struggle with alcohol. He had seven children, three wives often didn't see his children as he was traveling around the country. So there were some elements of tragedy to it and also some amazing, unparalleled sensations.
发言人 448:00
Means to me that phrase we call indigenous excellence, embodying the human spirit and all our flaws, but still being legendary and great and not allowing all the things that go against us in life to tear us down and stop us from being our greatest version of ourselves. That's what Jim Thorpe represents to me.
发言人 548:23
I think for such a long time, native people and native communities have been defined by our deficiencies. We're poor. You know, where if you look at educational attainment, we're at the bottom of the list, there's always somebody trying to take our land or our children, or it's always what's wrong with us. And over the past 20 years, I think as treaty rights have been asserted successfully in courts, and there's been this renewal of culture and language, especially in Native America, I think people are starting to understand that, yeah, we've got generational trauma, but generational trauma didn't help us survived. We survived because of generational joy and ingenuity and innovation, an achievement. And I think there's probably nobody that better describes that than Jim Thorpe.
发言人 150:10
I'm Ann Strange Champs, and this is to the best of our knowledge. I'd like to thank our guests today for sharing their knowledge and their hearts. Robert to Paul's album is called The Story of Jim Thorpe. Go to Spotify and check it out. Tpa is an Anishinaabe and an IA hip hop artist enrolled on the Leach Lake Reservation in Minnesota.
发言人 150:33
Biographer David Marinus, author of a Path Loop by Lightning, the Life of Jim Thorpe, activist Suzanne Shoon harjo as the recipient of a 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom. She's Cheyenne and hidalga Muskogee, and Professor Patty Lo, director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research at Northwestern University. She's a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior, ochie to the best of our knowledge, comes to you from Wisconsin Public Radio. Charles Monroe Cain produced this hour with help from Angelo bai-sicasal-petro kleber and Mark Ricker. Our technical director and sound designer is Joe harkey with help from Sarah Hopeful. Additional music this week comes from tall Paul Randy Wood superman katsa and audio res out archival audio from Robert W Wheeler and the Smithsonian Steve Allen is our executive producer and I'm an strange amps. If you heard anything in today's show that mattered to you, I hope you'll share it. Be well and thanks for listening.
发言人 251:53
Prx.
Jim Thorpe was one of the greatest athletes the world has ever known — a legend in the NFL, MLB, NCAA, and in the Olympics. Today he is being celebrated by a new generation of Native Americans.
- Rapper Tall Paul’s album is called, “The Story of Jim Thorpe." Tall Paul is an Anishinaabe and Oneida Hip-Hop artist enrolled on the Leech Lake reservation in Minnesota.
- Biographer David Maraniss is the author of "Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe."
- Activist Suzan Shown Harjo is the recipient of a 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom. She is Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee.
- Patty Loew is the director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research at Northwestern University. She is a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.
Special thanks to Robert W. Wheeler and the Smithsonian for archival audio.
Original Air Date: January 14, 2023
Interviews In This Hour:
Was Jim Thorpe the greatest athlete who ever lived? — The white man's trophy — A hero who looks like me — Indigenous excellence: Hip hop and the legacy of Jim Thorpe
Guests:
Tall Paul, Suzan Shown Harjo, Patty Loew, David Maraniss
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