“Trickster, Contrary. . . Teacher”: The Journalism, Politics, and Activism of Oshki Anishinaabe Gerald Vizenor

“A trickster, contrary, muckraking political journalist and activist, poet, essayist, novelist, and teacher”—this is the description offered of Gerald Vizenor by Choctaw scholar and writer Louis Owens. Though he is recognized internationally today as a writer and Native intellectual, in his years of emergence onto the literary scene Vizenor’s reputation in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota rested largely on his stature as a prickly activist, a thorn under the skin of the smooth machine of Minnesota politics, both tribal and mainstream. The long hours of his labor were given to community programs, then to local organizing. Vizenor’s entrance into the literary scene came through the urgent need he felt to effect change; many of his early writings were political and social critiques of the status quo, indictments of individuals, institutions, and government policies. These various topical pieces Vizenor published as a freelance writer and then as a columnist for the Minneapolis Tribune. Throughout these early years, and even as he moved on in his literary career to release the books The Everlasting Sky and Tribal Scenes and Ceremonies, Vizenor’s work retained a balance between his theoretical or social analysis and the vested lives of the Anishinaabeg people. The stories of individuals became the catalyst for his commentary on conditions and his various calls for change. The early articles, editorials, profiles, and literary journalism display the grass roots dedication of Gerald Vizenor to teach for change—for the pittance that was paid in those days to journalists and with the motive to alter conditions.