Episode Summary:

In 1977, Charlie Hill became the first Native comedian to perform on a national TV broadcast – a groundbreaking performance in television and cultural history.  

“It was a huge moment,” said Seminole filmmaker Sterlin Harjo, “When Charlie Hill went on national television and simply spoke like a human being... He changed the public perception about what a Native person is.” 

Charlie Hill’s comedic approach to the Oneida story is part of a long lineage of storytellers and historians defying stereotypes that includes Oscar Archiquette, a young Oneida working construction when the Federal Writers’ Project came to Wisconsin in the 1935. Archiquette joined a local unit of the Writers’ Project that sought to preserve the Oneida language and histories by interviewing elders and transcribing their stories. That work – and its blend of activism, culture and disarming humor – inspired later Oneida historians such as Loretta Metoxen and Gordon McLester and continues to inspire tribal historians today.  

Speakers:

Michelle Danforth Anderson, Oneida documentarian

Gordon McLester, Oneida historian

Loretta Metoxen, Oneida historian

Betty McLester, Oneida elder

Gerald Hill, Oneida elder

Jennifer Webster, Council Member

Links and Resources:

Oneida Nation Cultural Heritage Webpage

Charlie Hill's performance on the Richard Pryor Show, 1977

Oneida Notebooks Rediscovered, 1999

Human-Powered Podcast, Episode 5, "The Power of Indigenous Knowledge

Further Reading:

We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans in Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff

Oneida Lives edited by Herbert Lewis

Soul of a People: The WPA Writers’ Uncover Depression America by David A. Taylor

“Indian Humor” chapter in Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto by Vine Deloria Jr.

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor and James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editor: Ethan Oser

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Scott Nelson Elm, Gerald Hill, Ethan Oser and Marjorie Stevens

Special Thanks: Christopher Powless

Featuring music and archival material from: 

The Oneida Singers

Joseph Vitarelli

Bradford Ellis

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

NPR

MSNBC

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Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

Wisconsin Humanities

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