My Opinion: A Shame and Disgrace

The day afterRushmore we decided to take a very long drive to visit Wounded Knee and the Badlands.

MY OPINION:

I have to interject an editorial here about Wounded Knee.  As we always do, we research the site we are visiting in the AAA book and on a map and on the GPS.  Neither our GPS nor AAA had ANY reference to Wounded Knee, nor did anyone we spoke to have any information about it.  We eventually found it on the map and started our trip.  Not once did we see a sign or any indication that it existed.  We drove onto the Pine Ridge Reservation and things looked even bleaker.  Miles of empty road with an occasional trailer parked in a field.  Finally we came upon a small pine bough covered lean-to off to the side of the road with a hand lettered sign “Visitor Information” and a rather ragged billboard with the history of Wounded Knee Massacre.  We spoke with the Lakota woman manning the information booth who showed us a homemade history and told us her story.  She was raising two grandchildren, having sent two of her own children successful away from the res. as adults. Although there were schools on the reservation, there were no stores or churches and she was earning money by manning the information booth and selling trinkets.  She pointed out her trailer with an outside and no running water. She showed us the hillside where the mass grave had been dug for the massacred Indians, and a memorial stone put up by the son of one of the murdered Indians.  The path to the grave was unpaved and the graveyard was decrepit. 

Isn’t this part of our history?  Do we only record our successes?  Aren’t our disgraces part of our history too?  Aren’t the Indians part of our history?

The next day we heard on the radio that the county in South Dakota that encompasses the Pine Ridge Reservation is the third poorest in the country.  What gives?

BACK TO OUR TRIP

After we spent the morning at Wounded Knee we attempted to go to the Badlands, but missed it.  Despite the GPS and David the surveyor, we lost thousands of acres of Badlands), had a terrible fight (unrelated to the loss) and stormed on home.  However, we did see this fine dinasour in a field, all by himself.