Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/tag/russell-rowland/)
Three years ago, my friend Adrian Jawort and I started the Native American Race Relations and Healing Lecture Series, which meets once a month at the Billings Public Library. In the three years since we kicked off this series, we have been striving to achieve two goals. One is to come up with a shorter name, which we have failed to do. (more…) Continue Reading →
At panel discussion about racism Tuesday night, Jerry Clark said he didn’t think about race growing up in Barbados, where he and most everyone else was of African heritage. He said he learned about racism when he moved to South Florida at the age of 15, and then more formally during his years at college. When he moved to Billings, where he works for RiverStone Health, he said, he learned about another aspect of racial prejudice. (more…) Continue Reading →
Two Montana writers have launched a new podcast, “Breakfast in Montana,” that will feature an informal discussion of two Montana books, one from the past and one contemporary work, in each episode. (more…) Continue Reading →
Last summer, after violent confrontations broke out in Charlottesville, Va., where white supremacists gathered to protest the planned removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, Kari Kaiser was talking to a friend who also belonged to the Billings Rises group. Billings Rises was part of Big Sky Rising, which Kaiser described as a “volunteer army of concerned citizens” who came together after the 2016 election to encourage civic engagement and activism. (more…) Continue Reading →
Montana has become known for its rich history of books and writers, but how did that happen? Neighboring states like Wyoming and the Dakotas boast a handful of well-known writers, but with books and stories like “The Big Sky,” “A River Runs Through It” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” Montana established itself early on as a place that produces quality writers. Thursday night, the Billings Public Library will host a panel discussion about some of these writers and books, and panelists will bat around a few ideas of what it is about Montana that inspires such incredible literature. The discussion will start at 6:30 p.m. in the library’s Royal Johnson Community Room, led by local author Russell Rowland. The panel will also feature, High Plains Book Festival founder Corby Skinner, former Montana Poet Laureate Tami Haaland, Last Best News founder Ed Kemmick and MSU-Billings literature professor Rachel Schaffer. Continue Reading →
About two years ago, I gave a talk at the Pictograph Caves just outside Billings. Inspired by the Native American pictographs that are the main feature of the site, I focused on a subject that had become something of an obsession since I returned to Montana 10 years ago, which is the treatment of the Native Americans in our state. I grew up in Montana, but I had been gone for 25 years when I returned. I moved from San Francisco, and I was stunned to find that people still talked very openly about Native Americans as if they are all lazy, drunk and a drain on our economy. (more…) Continue Reading →
Fifty-Six Counties: A Montana Journey, by Russell Rowland, Bangtail Press, 2016. 416 pages, $22.95. Russell Rowland’s new work of nonfiction is an altogether beguiling book, but also a strange one that is impossible to pigeonhole. (more…) Continue Reading →
A civil rights panel conducted a hearing in Billings for nearly eight hours Monday on the subject of discrimination against Native Americans, and it heard nothing more vivid than the testimony of Sarah Beaumont. For 20 minutes, punctuated by fits of sobbing, Beaumont told of working for a major company in a good union job in Billings, and of having to endure, on an almost daily basis, hateful, hurtful remarks about Native Americans. (more…) Continue Reading →
“When I started telling people in Amherst that I was Native American, their most common response was ‘Wow, that’s really cool!’”
This was one of the more striking statements made by Caleb Williams, who was the speaker at the most recent Native American Race Relations and Healing Lecture Series. And the striking thing about it was the expression on his face when he said it. It was clearly not the reaction he is accustomed to getting when he talks about his heritage. (more…) Continue Reading →
When I moved back to my hometown of Billings in 2007, I had been away from Montana for 25 years. And it soon became clear that either I had changed, Montana had changed, or my memory of Montana was off the mark. (more…) Continue Reading →
