Marty Two Bulls Sr., a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, is the recipient of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi award for editorial cartooning. PHOTO COURTESY/NATIVE AMERICA CALLING VIA FACEBOOK
RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA –– “Our enemies call us the Sioux.” This is the intriguing guiding mantra of talented Oglala Lakota artist Marty Two Bulls Sr., as emblazoned on the home page of his recently relaunched commercial design website, m2bulls.com. In April, the intrepid Two Bulls was presented with the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists for his nationally renowned editorial cartoons. He specifically won in the category “Editorial Cartooning (Newspaper Circulation 1-100,000, Regional Magazine, Non-Daily Publication or Online Independent).” Two Bulls is currently the editorial cartoonist for Indian Country Today Media Network, a New York City-based weekly newsmagazine that has been owned and operated by the Oneida Nation since 1998. Such recognition is no small feat in a world in which Native American journalists – particularly editorial cartoonists – are few and far between in comparison to non-Native American journalists. But through the hard work, dedication and professionalism of individuals like Two Bulls, that fact of life is steadily becoming a thing of the past. Originally hailing from the Red Shirt Table community on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Two Bulls initially got his start as a serious political cartoonist from foremost Native American journalist and Native Sun News founder Tim Giago in the 1980s at the original Lakota Times. He also worked for Giago after the newspaper changed its name from the Lakota Times to Indian Country Today in 1992. He has a strong connection to his people as evidenced by his sharp-witted, carefully nuanced political cartoons with their highly relevant and highly contemporized themes of Native America. The cartoons that secured him the Society of Professional Journalists award address television journalist Diane Sawyer’s visit to Pine Ridge last year for ABC’s “20/20,” the shooting death of Native American woodcarver John T. Williams at the hands of a Seattle police officer in August 2010, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Occupy Wall Street movement. The nationally recognized artist with the distinctive style has enjoyed a long career in the commercial design sector including television, print technologies, daily newspapers and newer media forms, serving as graphic editor for South Dakota’s two largest daily newspapers, the Rapid City Journal and the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. Two Bulls, whose father is The Rev. Robert Two Bulls and grandfather was Peter Two Bulls, graduated last month with a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M, where he now makes his home. (Contact Jesse Abernathy at editor@nsweekly.com)
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