Lair of Hunterbear

The Coming of Age Bear [Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Area, Northern Arizona]

Dedicated To Our Enduring And Immortal Cloudy Gray [ Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ ]

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.

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 [Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ ] 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.

Sky is also Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ -- 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 2011. 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

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

Pieces in our Jackson Mississippi Civil Rights Scrapbook: Three consecutive web pages beginning with http://hunterbear.org/a_piece_of__the_scrapbook.htm

Hunter Bear's Movement Life Interview (by Bruce Hartford of Civil Rights Movement Veterans): http://hunterbear.org/HUNTER%20BEAR%20INTERVIEW%20CRMV.htm

A Mississippi Key-Note Account from the Jackson Movement Saga http://hunterbear.org/A%20MISSISSIPPI%20KEYNOTE%20STORY.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

http://hunterbear.org/tangledsovcomcase.htm

Black Belt Thunder (Organizing the Northeastern North Carolina counties): http://hunterbear.org/NORTH%20CAROLINA_OUR%20SUCCESSFUL%20BLACK%20BELT%20MOVEMENT.htm (many internal links)

Witch Hunt Continues: The Southern Conference Educational Fund

http://www.hunterbear.org/witch_hunt_continuesthe_southern.htm

Poverty Wars and the Seeds of Labor Unionism: North Carolina Black Belt 1966-1967 http://www.hunterbear.org/poverty_wars_and_the_seeds_of_la.htm

North Carolina Black-Belt Campaign: Link to about two dozen sequential pages including photographs

http://www.hunterbear.org/creative.htm

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

Native Americans and the New Century (with internal links): http://hunterbear.org/nativeamericans.htm

Personal Background Narrative (with many internal links); http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm (Up-dated 2011) MUCH INFORMATION.

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child (My Father); http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm

Elder Recognition Award from Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Story Tellers: http://www.hunterbear.org/elder_recognition_award_for_2005.htm

Extensive Essay: "I Consider Myself a Real Red: The Social Thought of American Civil Rights Organizer John R. (Salter) Hunter Gray" by Professor Roy T. Wortman, Department of History, Kenyon College, JOURNAL OF INDIGENOUS THOUGHT, Saskatchewan Indian Federated College (now First Nations University), Winter 2001: http://hunterbear.org/Red%20essay%20on%20Hunter%20Gray.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

Racism in the Northern Plains http://www.hunterbear.org/Devil's%20Lake.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

Lumbee Indians of North Carolina Seek Much Needed Full Federal Recognition http://www.hunterbear.org/lumbee_indians_of_north_carolina.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

The Next Great Step of the Way: John Beecher's Grassroots Protest Poetry: http://hunterbear.org/next_great_step_of_the_way.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.

http://hunterbear.org/absolutely_heretical_thoughts.htm

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 (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 2011. 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!) 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.)  And Mary Ann's apt comments have led me to 
						write this:

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."

http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Jackson-Mississippi,674910.aspx

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 Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'

ANNOUNCEMENT NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:

The new enlarged and updated edition of my book, JACKSON MISSISSIPPI: AN AMERICAN CHRONICLE OF STRUGGLE AND SCHISM, is now fully available for purchase. The publisher is Bison Books/University of

Nebraska Press.

The initial Introduction in the two earlier editions has been replaced by one written by me: "On The River Of No Return." This is, in many ways, a large, additional chapter [about 9500 words] which up-dates Mississippi, discusses our family's always interesting experiences since the first edition of JM appeared in 1979, and contains supplemental autobiographical material. And, of course, it also contains something of my reflections as a life-long social justice organizer.

The dedication:

For Eldri and the Family -- truly a Golden Horde

And in memory of Doris and Ben Allison and Medgar Wiley Evers

Thus this will likely be my basic autobiographical memoir. As a corollary to that, however, I must say that my health is fine.

The University of Nebraska Press is one of the largest university presses in the country.

Here is their announcement of Jackson, Mississippi: (Click on the photo and it'll get bigger.)

http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Jackson-Mississippi,674910.aspx

In Solidarity,

Hunter Bear (Hunter Gray / John R. Salter, Jr.)

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

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.