An Indian in White America

Narrated with intense honesty, this autobiography of Mark Monroe, a Lakota Sioux Indian, is a story of courage, faith, and determination, and a rare opportunity to witness the life of a contemporary American Indian. Despite lifelong confrontations with violence, racism, and personal hardship - alcoholism, family deaths, illness, poverty, and unemployment - Mark Monroe has worked to instill ethnic pride in his fellow Indians. After an early idyllic childhood at the Rosebud South Dakota reservation, Monroe moved with his parents off-reservation to Alliance, Nebraska. There he first felt the sting of white America's racism from signs outside local businesses that read "No Indians or dogs allowed". As a young man, Monroe enlisted in the military, for the first time experiencing outside acceptance and learning vocational skills. Upon his return to the United States, he worked as a baker. At the same time, however, he was being sucked into a life of alcoholism, begun years earlier with social drinking. Eventually he was unable to eat or to work. After rehabilitation, he ran for Police Magistrate. Monroe was the first Indian ever to have filed for public office in Alliance, and his candidacy divided the town. Though he lost the election, he gained community support and a growing sense of dignity from the campaign. From the misery and hopelessness he suffered as an alcoholic, and the pains of recovery, Monroe became aware of the cultural difference between Indian alcoholism and white alcoholism. This understanding led to his work with Indian alcoholics at the Panhandle Mental Health Center in Scottsbluff, Nebraska - another first. No Indian had ever served on the Center's staff. Since his recovery, Monroe has been an active participant in his community and continues to fight for the legal rights of American Indians. In 1973 he founded the American Indian Council, which today offers a variety of health, educational, and social programs, including a nutrition program, a hospital busing program, and alcohol counseling. Author note: Mark Monroe is currently Director of the American Indian Council, Inc., in Alliance. He formerly served as Vice President of the Nebraska Indian Commission and as President of United Indians of Nebraska. He and Carolyn Reyer have been friends since 1982. Carolyn Reyer is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of English and Women's Studies at West Virginia University, where she developed the "Native American Visiting Professorship" series and the "Native American Literature Program". She is also the author of "Cante Ohitika: Images of Lakota Women on Pine Ridge".