Listening to Indians Research Guide

[Quoted from Myers' proposal to STLCC-FV for processing of the interview material]

These taped interviews represent the spontaneous, largely uninhibited, personal, even intimate opinions of the whole range of Indian individuals.  They are the candid views of American Indian people; gentle and militant, shy and aggressive, some dull, sometimes amazing.  They reflect opinions from poor people and from the successful, from the famous and the obscure.  All in all, they add a new dimension to the various materials now available: what it means to be an American Indian in the contemporary United States.

In the interview with George Fairbanks (Memoirist #16), Sam Myers concluded with the following.  "There is one other thing I can leave with you, so that we never have to feel that we have come to an end with this effort that we’re engaged in – making these recorded conversations.  I’m sure you have tape recorders here too, and if ever you have something that you want to put down on tape that I can use in my classes put in our library tape bank, and then that’s open to the public really, just like a library book is, you could make a tape and send it to me and I’ll include it…to tell the story the way you want it told."

Additional interviews were conducted by Sam Myers which were not among the 144 interviews comprising the core collection.  These have not been transcribed.  The recordings for several are missing.

• Bill Blankenship
• Gary Colbert
• Marty Cross
• Hugh Edmo
• Harley Hamilton
• Helen Hardin
• Tony Jojola
• Woody Kipp
• Billy Mills
• Ron Olguin
• Luana Platera
• C. Fayne Porter
• Myra Qualo
• Johnny Robb
• Evelena Sombrero
• Zell Towersap
• Faye R. Washburn
• Darrel Wesley
• Frank Whitebuffaloman