In the Midwestern city of Cleveland, Ohio, the professional sports teams are better known than the ethnic struggles of its rank and file citizens. But one distinctive group that stands out there was formed in the mid-twentieth century through federal programs marketing a better way of life. The urban American Indian Movement formed from these relocated Native community members paralleled the migrations from across Indian country to big-city America. Many of these unelected social leaders are now walking on as an entire generation of American Indians finds itself born off the reservation in greater numbers than those born on it. Cleveland is one such setting. Robert “Bob” Roche is a Chiricahua Apache who was born in Cleveland, traveled the Red Road as a younger man to witness Turtle Island for himself, and came back here to raise a family. Major League Baseball’s opening day 2017 played out to the sounds of protests downtown, but later that night, Roche heard that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred had commented on the baseball team logo and said that he wanted to hear from those that were affected by it. “I reached out to that office to let them know that it is an important topic to me as well as my family, and others I know. We’ve always been here for as long as I have been alive. At age 70, that’s saying something,” said Roche. “All we had for a long time was each other, so to make it to this age and see many others still here; we must have done something right.” Cleveland was still booming when he was born. “The U.S. government advertised their Urban Relocation programs in a pamphlet I still own by showing a white picket fence life and living off the fat of the land,” Roche said. “That image moved a lot of people to get on buses, leave their reservations and end up getting dumped all over this part of Ohio haphazardly. Russell Means, the future AIM leader, was living here and got people to start coming together. He worked in accounting and was sometimes employed as a clothing model for the Higbee Department Store that was based in Cleveland. His work with the American Indian Center here was the bedrock for all of the community organizing that took place after that.Read More on the Story:
Charles Kader: Urban American Indian Populations Age As Unelected Leadership Walks On (Indian Country Media Network 5/30)
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