Local leaders share views with federal mediator

Larry Kline

Havre Daily News

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Local government officials, business leaders and residents have been meeting with a U.S. Department of Justice mediator who is in town this week to address what some perceive as racial discrimination in and around Havre.

Mediator Grace Sage is employed by the Justice Department's Community Relations Service and is gathering information to determine whether a problem exists in Havre and what can be done to bridge gaps between neighbors.

The mediator told the Rocky Boy tribal council Tuesday she visited Havre in late June and returned because "it was well within the jurisdiction" of what she does.

Before her June visit, Sage had read a University of Montana School of Journalism Native News Project, which included accounts of mistreatment of Native Americans in some Havre businesses. She also had received an invitation from Havre resident Charlie Grant.

Tribal council member and state Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Rocky Boy, asked what the end result of her visits would be.

"The expectation is to have people agree there is a problem and ... come together to solve it," she told him. "What we can do is get people on board for mediation, counseling or perhaps training."

Windy Boy was designated as the tribal council's contact person for the mediator.

He offered his opinion on the issue in an interview Wednesday.

"It's always been here," Windy Boy said. "It's been more subtle than it was 50 years ago." Windy Boy remembers seeing signs in business windows that read "No dogs or Indians allowed."

"It's just like any group," he said. "There's always a couple that make it bad for the rest of the community. I'm not saying the whole town is like that. It exists at a certain level."

Racism in Montana is not confined to Havre, he added.

"I've been followed around in stores (in other cities)," Windy Boy said. "This isn't the only town that deals with this."

During the 2005 legislative session, he and a companion were in a Wal-Mart at 2 a.m., and his granddaughter was in need of a diaper. At the checkout, a worker "told us that he hoped she wouldn't pull out her WIC," or Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children vouchers.

"For us to think it doesn't exist in our state, we're fooling ourselves," he added. "It's here in our society." The mediator met individually with city officials and Havre City Council members Wednesday. She declined to be interviewed, but officials later discussed the conversations they had with her.

"She asked for my perceptions," Havre Mayor Bob Rice said. "She said she wasn't judging the community on the word of a few people."

The Native News Project article about Havre did not adequately describe how things are in the city, Rice said.

"I thought that story was very slanted," Rice said.

Discrimination does exist in Havre, just as it does elsewhere, Rice said.

"It's been there and people know about it," he said. "We do have some people that are racist in this town. You have them everywhere. This is a good community. It's unfortunate that this came out the way it did."

Rice said new business ventures being planned for Havre and Rocky Boy will help Native Americans and ease tensions.

"I think Wal-Mart will help," he said about the retail chain's plans to build a supercenter west of Havre. "That's 275 jobs."

The reservation is working on plans for a large casino and an ethanol plant. There is a lot of oil and gas exploration going on right now, Rice said. Those are all positives for the residents of both communities, he added.

City Council member Jack Brandon, who was raised in Chinook, said things have changed over the years.

"I saw more prejudice growing up in Chinook than you would see today," Brandon said. "I think we're better today at judging someone on their merits than we used to be.

"I don't think anything astonishing is going to come out of" Sage's visit, he added. "Hopefully people are more aware that these things do exist and they do something about it."

City Council member Allen "Woody" Woodwick agreed that attitudes have changed, though prejudice does exist to a degree today.

"We have a problem in town, but I hesitate to call it racism," Woodwick said. "More of a prejudice, (which isn't) strictly racial. I do believe it's improved some. You make a little progress here and a little progress there. I don't think there's a magic wand that will make it all go away. I think we need to have some continuing education. We need to just keep working together to overcome it. There's not an ordinance we can draft that tells everybody to be nice to each other. It still boils down to individuals treating each other with respect."

Woodwick and Brandon agreed that the Havre Public Schools' system of organizing its elementary schools by grade level, rather than by neighborhood, ensures that children of different economic and social backgrounds form strong bonds of friendship early in life.

Rocky Boy resident Lloyd Top Sky, who expects to meet soon with Sage, said Native American people face discrimination from white people and also discriminate against each other.

The people in power at Rocky Boy watch out more for family members than the rest of their constituents, he said.

"We're all the same, but on the other hand we're not the same. They discriminate against me because of my name. It's an unfair system," Top Sky said.

"You see it going on even more," he added. "They fund certain people for higher education. Housing's the same way. It's all on the shoulders of the boards and who sits on the boards, but the tribal council?"

"It probably exists," Windy Boy said when asked about Top Sky's comments. "I'm in a position of power, and I try not to conduct business as such. I do whatever it takes to try to help people. I go out of my way to help people.

"If it exists, the constituents would know more than anybody," he added.

The discrimination continues outside of the reservation's border, Top Sky said.

"We seem to be targeted more than anyone else at the city level," he said. "We're always in the paper. We get pulled over more often."

Havre police Lt. Russ Ostwalt said today that Native Americans and other minorities are not targeted by the department.

"There's nothing like that going on here," Ostwalt said. "We have two Native Americans on our Police Department and three females."

Any complaints of that nature are taken seriously, he said, and investigated within the department. Officers receive training on such issues at the state academy and continue their education while employed, he added.

Discrimination is not limited to local government employees, Top Sky said.

"I see it almost every day," he said. "I never said anything. I used to absorb it and leave. I think a lot of the people out here are that way."

Windy Boy said area residents need to cooperate, regardless of their differences.

"We need to continue to move forward collaboratively," he said. "We're not going anywhere, and Havre isn't going anywhere."

Also, Indians contribute a significant amount of dollars toward Havre's economy, and that needs to be acknowledged, he said.

"The level of dollars that Rocky Boy and Fort Belknap bring to (Havre) needs to be recognized," Windy Boy said. "Otherwise, a lot of people are going to start going to Great Falls."

Hill County Commissioner Mike Anderson, a Havre native, said racism is not a widespread problem.

"There are small factions on both sides of the issue, but generally I think that most people aren't discriminatory against other minorities," Anderson said.

He said the mediator had "quite a list" of people to talk to in and around Havre.

"She just wanted to get everybody's input," Anderson said. "She'll see what commonalities there are and come up with some ideas on what can be done to help."

Havre Area Chamber of Commerce executive director Debbie Vandeberg said the chamber board met with the mediator Wednesday and is keeping the dialogue confidential.

Rice said the chamber has a new idea regarding possible solutions to the issue and may not go forward with resurrecting the defunct Native American Affairs Committee, which consisted of representatives of local and tribal governments, business leaders and community members when it was created 10 years ago. It stopped meeting about six years ago, and Vandeberg, city officials and tribal council members have said they want to revive it.

Vandeberg said the board is making a decision about the status of the committee today. She would not comment further.