I was born from the Four Directions and things have always been interesting. This vast website is based on a long and continuing lifetime of direct, grassroots activist community organizing: Native rights, union labor, civil rights, civil liberties. There is also much on the American West. Almost all material is first hand primary in nature and much is contemporary. Our Hunterbear website was launched on February 14, 2000.
This initial cover page -- right here -- contains forty representative website links of ours. Many are in the lower portion of this page. That's kind of a "mini-index." There are also links to the Index/Directory at two points -- and that's the trail to a vast number of our other links. Our Lair of Hunterbear website and our entire system are safeguarded by full-scale up-to-date Norton and Malwarebytes /Anti-Malware -- plus systemic protections provided by our computer's manufacturer.
I have always lived and worked in the Borderlands.
October 14 2011
After this long interview visit with us, Loki wrote, "Thank you, John. We had a great time. Danor and Travis were in Mississippi when we accompanied Joan Trumpauer Mulholland (aka - Mom) to the 50th Freedom Rider Reunion and we conducted a slew of excellent interviews while we were there but they were still sufficiently amazed by your tales. Danor noted, "That dude is the real deal." This was Chris' first real experience with anything pertaining to the Civil Rights Movement so he was shell-shocked by your stories. For me, it was just nice to see you all again and hear the stories once more."
A few weeks earlier, following a very pleasant visit at our home with Loki and his good spouse, Shieleen, Loki wrote of me and our prolonged and violently attacked Jackson Woolworth Sit-In. (We practiced our Movement tactic of non-violence.)
"John Salter (he would later change it to his ancestral name -- Hunter Gray) is one of the coolest cats I know. He's not a small guy. He's tough as nails and could've taken any, if not all, of the mob. He had been through worse. Blood (from brass knuckles to the head) mixed with salt and ketchup run down his neck and shoulders."
Well, I am a pretty big thug.
Hunter Gray (Hunter Bear) October 14 2011
Important film update (May 1 2012):http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1444858314/an-ordinary-hero
See several very key pieces from our big Scrapbook pak on the massive and historic Jackson Movement of 1962-63. Three consecutive and full pages beginning with this Link: http://hunterbear.org/a_piece_of__the_scrapbook.htm See also my personal reflections and great appreciation of my colleague-in-struggle and good friend indeed, Medgar W. Evers: http://hunterbear.org/medgar_w.htm
THROWING DOWN THE GAUNTLET: JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI 1963 -- SENT TO A WIDE RANGE OF INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMPONENTS OF THE JACKSON AND MISSISSIPPI POWER STRUCTURE.
A historic document from the immediately above Scrapbook pak: We broaden our five month highly successful boycott of downtown Jackson into a full-scale mass, non-violent Movement.
This is just one small "piece" of my most special place in the Universe -- the very long and deep and vast Sycamore Canyon Wilderness southwest of Flagstaff, Arizona. This photo was taken part way down into the canyon. Normally, Sycamore Creek cannot be viewed from the canyon rim. In 1955, at 21, I walked the length of the canyon along the creek, exploring several of the vast side canyons. This was my Vision Quest. My journey took several days. For more, see my Ghosts http://hunterbear.org/ghosts.htm
The Coming of Age Bear [Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Area, Northern Arizona]
THE LAIR OF HUNTER BEAR
Dedicated To Our Enduring And Immortal Cloudy Gray [ NaŽshdoŽiŽbaŽiŽ ]
Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear] The Organizer At Large
AT OUR FAR-UP HOME IN EASTERN IDAHO
[Mi'kmaq/St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk]
Member, United Auto Workers / National Writers Union [AFL-CIO]
Photo: "After My Total Victory in the Lupus War" (2003-2011)
(See Shooting Lupus: http://hunterbear.org/shooting_lupus.htm )
I am honored -- humbled --
by the 2005 Elder Recognition Award of Wordcraft
Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. This is one of several
awards voted by the Caucus [board] of this organization of writers,
storytellers, film makers, and journalists.
[The previous recipient
of the Wordcraft Elder Recognition Award was Maurice Kenny, Mohawk, teacher and
playwright and poet, who received it in 2000.]
http://www.hunterbear.org/elder_recognition_award_for_2005.htm
SCROLL DOWN FOR SEVERAL INTRODUCTORY PHOTOS AND A NUMBER OF REPRESENTATIVE LINKS AT THE LOWER END OF THIS PAGE -- AND A SECOND LINK TO THE INDEX. (AMONG OTHER PHOTOS, TWO OF MY NATIVE FATHER AND A VERY CONTEMPORARY ONE OF PART OF OUR FAMILY, ARE AT THE FAR LOWER END OF THIS WEBSITE COVER PAGE.)
Cloudy [NaŽshdoŽiŽbaŽiŽ ] Half Bobcat and half domestic cat. Virtually inseparable from Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear], she takes care of him on an almost full time basis. She is substantially psychic.
And see the very closely and directly connected Sky Gray.
Sky is also NaŽshdoŽiŽbaŽiŽ -- very substantially Bobcat. Extremely active, she is a devoted companion of Hunter Bear and very psychic indeed.
Bad beatings at Jackson: June 13, 1963 -- two days after Medgar Evers was shot and killed. It helps a lot to have, as I have since the hatch, a thick skull and a thick hide. When a horde of police charged me on Rose Street, I stood my ground -- facing them. I was clubbed several times, into bloody unconsciousness; then taken to the Fairgrounds Stockade Concentration Camp; finally to a hospital; then to jail. This newspaper photo was taken later that evening at the Blair Street A.M.E. Church where I spoke in my badly torn and very bloody shirt to a very large, packed audience. Young whites were reported seen driving by with firearms. A little later on that evening, I telephoned Martin Luther King and asked if he would come to Jackson for Medgar's funeral two days hence. And, of course, Dr. King immediately agreed. [See our many Mississippi pages, listed on the inside Index.] We were in the hard-core South, deeply involved in the Movement, from 1961 well into 1967.
See these among many others. Most of these are updated into the present. Most have some internal referral links within our Hunterbear website. Some have many internal links.
Outlaw Trail http://hunterbear.org/outlaw_trail1.htm
Medgar Evers http://hunterbear.org/medgar_w.htm (This page also contains a new section -- on our late colleague, Cleveland Donald Jr.) MEDGAR'S LONG SECTION UPDATED 10/29/2012
The Woolworth Sit-In http://hunterbear.org/Woolworth%20Sitin%20Jackson.htm
Forces and Faces Along the Activist Trail http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm
My Community Organizing Course http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm
Hunter Bear's Movement Life Interview (by Bruce Hartford of Civil Rights Movement Veterans): http://hunterbear.org/HUNTER%20BEAR%20INTERVIEW%20CRMV.htm
Jackson Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism. My very detailed book with my first - hand account of the careful organizing and dramatic rise of the massive Jackson Movement of 1962-63 -- with many of the book's reviews. JM is now available -- Fall 2011 -- in an expanded and updated edition. http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
The Tangled Case of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Files
Black Belt Thunder (Organizing the Northeastern North Carolina counties): http://hunterbear.org/NORTH%20CAROLINA_OUR%20SUCCESSFUL%20BLACK%20BELT%20MOVEMENT.htm (many internal links)
Follow-up Material on North Carolina Black-Belt Struggle (includes a new -- 2011 -- piece of mine on Bertie County, North Carolina: http://www.hunterbear.org/willacofield.htm
Chicago Organizing: http://hunterbear.org/chicago_organizing.htm
Up-State New York Organizing: http://hunterbear.org/rochester.htm
Northern Plains Teaching/Organizing: http://www.hunterbear.org/UND.htm
Ghosts: http://hunterbear.org/ghosts.htm
Personal Background Narrative (with many internal links); http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm (Up-dated 2012) MUCH INFORMATION.(One update is John Salter III's letter to the Mississippi Clarion Ledger in 2005 -- but now in a very contemporary context. It's at the bottom of the Narrative page.)
The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child (My Father); http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm (Expanded June-September 2012) MUCH ON OUR NATIVE AMERICAN BACKGROUND.
Elder Recognition Award from Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Story Tellers: http://www.hunterbear.org/elder_recognition_award_for_2005.htm
A Brief Note on My Academic Education: http://www.hunterbear.org/a_brief_note_on_my_academic_educ.htm
Culture Heroes: Gray Lands and Gray Ghosts: http://hunterbear.org/GRAY%20LANDS%20AND%20GRAY%20GHOSTS.htm (with many internal links)
Alcohol and Peyote and Native Americans http://www.hunterbear.org/alcohol_and_peyote_and_native_am.htm
Some Good Words for Activist Advocacy http://www.hunterbear.org/there_is_a_saying_in_our_native_.htm
Native American Community Organizational Training Center http://www.hunterbear.org/training%20center.htm
Uranium Tragedy ("The Yellow Rock That Kills") http://www.hunterbear.org/a_native_rights_sampling.htm
Native Issues And Other Matters: http://www.hunterbear.org/NATIVE%20ISSUES%20AND%20OTHER%20MATTERS.htm
The Lost Adams Diggings, Native Americans, and Dreams and Legend http://www.hunterbear.org/lost_adams_diggings.htm
American Racism: An Organizer's Perspective: http://hunterbear.org/AMERICAN%20RACISM.htm
Carl Gorman and the Navajo Code Talkers: http://hunterbear.org/carl_gorman.htm
The Murder of an Indian Youth: Russell Turcotte: http://hunterbear.org/NATIVE%20AMERICAN%20COMMISSION%20PAGE%204.htm
Absolutely Heretical Thoughts (A mix of our recent posts on a wide variety of topics -- including friendly Extraterrestrials.
Wobbly Mentor: http://hunterbear.org/wobbly_mentor.htm
Maurice Travis and Clinton Jencks and the Mine-Mill union (with many internal links) : http://hunterbear.org/travis.htm
Salt of the Earth and Juan Chacon: http://www.hunterbear.org/salt.htm
Forest Fires in the West http://hunterbear.org/forest_fires_in_the_west
Coming of Age into the Red: A Sycamore Memoir: http://hunterbear.org/coming%20of%20age%20[western%20memoir.%20htm.htm
When the Red Leaves Fall (Natives in the Radical Culture of Seattle (Autobiographical) http://hunterbear.org/WHEN%20THE%20RED%20LEAVES%20FALL.htm
Bloodstained Trail (guns. gun rights, 2nd Amendment civil liberties) http://hunterbear.org/BLOODSTAINED%20TRAIL.htm
Riding to the Aid of Jenghiz Khan: http://www.hunterbear.org/riding%20to%20the%20aid%20of%20Jenghiz%20Khan.htm
See Shooting Lupus, now expanded 7 / 09 / 2011 and updated April 27 2012 (my killing a very deadly disease in an eight year war -- a disease that did its best to kill me): http://hunterbear.org/shooting_lupus.htm
And see the extensive "Special Tribute Page" for Hunter Bear -- created in 2004 by many, many friends from over the decades. Much social justice material. http://hunterbear.org/special_tribute_page_for_hunter.htm
(ALMOST ALL OF THESE ARE UPDATED -- MOST INTO THE PRESENT. CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE DIRECTORY/INDEX FOR MUCH, MUCH MORE.)
BASIC MEMOIR: AN ORGANIZER'S BOOK (HUNTER BEAR) WIDELY POSTED
COMMENTS BY HUNTER BEAR:
This note does not call for a response from anyone. People are busy.
I've already received some fine comments about the the new version of my book, Jackson Mississippi. (Susan Klopfer, a Southern Movement writer, did a most positive review forthwith! It is on Amazon.) One comment came from Mary Ann, an old friend and former Tougaloo student of mine and a strong and committed worker on behalf of our Jackson Boycott Movement out of which we developed the mass, non-violent Jackson Movement. She writes:
Hi Mr. Salter, finally received your book in the mail yesterday. Was anxious to read the new introduction. Initially I was confused as to what this had to do with Jackson, Ms. but as I continued to read , I had an aha moment . It dawned on me. These experiences made you into the person we came to know , love and appreciate in Jackson/Tougaloo, Ms.
WWW,
MARY ANN
Those are very kind words -- and it's certainly mutual. (WWW, I should add, was the slogan of our Jackson struggle: WE WILL WIN.)
James Loewen (author of Lies My Teacher Told Me and other works), November 9 2012:
Jackson, Mississippi
presents a vivid insider's view of the Jackson boycott
movement, the demonstrations that led to mass arrests,
the actions of courageous young people, and the murder
of Medgar Evers and the incredible tension of his
funeral march. As you would expect, given that Salter
was and is a sociologist and a radical, it also contains
penetrating analyses of the role of each acting group,
including the national office of the NAACP, black
ministers, the city government and police force, White
Citizens Council, etc. And it shows the important role
played by Tougaloo, some of its students and faculty
members (including Prof. Salter), and its president, A.
D. Beittel.
I and my good family have been having an interesting life these past many decades. We'd do it all over again. And we're not at the end of the trail by a long stretch.
But, interesting and productive as I think it's been, I very much doubt that any autobiography I did -- as per the repeated suggestions and encouragement of good friend Bill Mandel -- would ever find its way into print. By the same token, I doubt that anyone would be interested in doing a biographical book on me. The just now out third version of my book, Jackson Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011), is, as I indicate in its new and substantial Introduction, "an organizer's book."
Growing up in Northern Arizona, in a setting replete with social justice issues and committed early on to grassroots and activist community organizing, I, personally, have always been especially interested in the lives of effective activists. Two of those, autobiographies, had a very significant and enduring impact on me back in 1955 when I was 21: Bill Haywood's Book: The Autobiography of William D. Haywood (New York: International Publishers, 1929 and subsequent editions) and Ralph Chaplin's Wobbly: The Rough and Tumble Story of an American Radical (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948.) And there followed many other works, from social justice fighters of many ethnicities and cultures.
I, my family, and many friends have long felt there should be some sort of widely available account of who I and my family are, where we come from, what we stand for -- and what we've accomplished over many turbulent decades. While my book obviously focuses very basically and heavily on the carefully organized and ultimately massive Jackson Movement of 1962-63, its original epilogue, "Reflections on an Odyssey," covers a number of my subsequent campaigns into 1978. And now, the new Introduction -- about 9,500 words -- updates organizing and related matters to the present, has some Mississippi, provides personal and family background, motivational insight, and some of my key reflections as a life-long activist Organizer.
Taken in total, and standing alone, this book is my basic memoir. I expect it to be useful to a wide variety of social justice activists of all ages -- and very much younger and developing people of all backgrounds.
Hunter Gray (John R. Salter, Jr.) October 25 2011
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R
SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by NaŽshdoŽiŽbaŽiŽ
and Ohkwari'
ANNOUNCEMENT NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:
My father, John R. Salter [Frank Gray] -- Mi'kmaq / St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk -- and excerpts from relevant documents relating to his change of name from Gray to Salter -- and my change of name back to Gray. See: The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child -- My Father: http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm (expanded 2012)
Our basic cultural perspective is Iroquoian and Wabanaki -- strongly influenced by Navajo and Laguna.
A very contemporary photo of part of our family. Left to right: Eldri, John, Josie, Hunter, Peter. Maria took the photo.
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR]
IN THE MOUNTAINS OF EASTERN IDAHO
Much Recommended Link:
Member, UAW / National Writers Union [AFL-CIO]
Copyright 2000/2013 by Hunter Gray
PHOTO OF SEGMENT OF OUR VERY OLD THIRTY INCH BEADED [SHELL] BELT [ONONDAGA]