Hunter Gray

Hunter Gray

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Hunter Gray, also known as John Salter, Jr. and Hunter Gray Bear, taught in Indian Studies [and Honors] at the University of North Dakota for thirteen years [full professor and chair in Indian Studies], and was a member of its graduate faculty. He was deeply and consistently involved in Indian rights, labor unionization, civil rights and civil liberties. Gray also has a site entitled The Lair of Hunter Bear that contains a vast amount of Native American, civil rights, civil liberties, labor and related social justice material.

From Hunter Gray's resume page:

I'm an organizer -- a working social justice agitator. I've been one since the mid-1950s and I'll always be one. In many respects, it's one of the toughest trails anyone could ever blaze.

An effective organizer seeks to get grassroots people together -- and does; develops on-going and democratic local leadership; deals effectively with grievances and individual/family concerns; works with the people to achieve basic organizational goals and develop new ones; and builds a sense of the New World To Come Over The Mountains Yonder -- and how all of that relates to the shorter term steps.

Heritage

Gray come out of a racially and culturally mixed background. His father was "an essentially full-blooded Indian and my mother was an Anglo from an old Western American “frontier” family. Our identity has always been on the Native side. I grew up in Northern Arizona and Northwestern New Mexico, where our family was extensively involved in Southwestern social justice campaigns and has always had avery close involvement with the regional Indian nations"..

Activist Timeline

From Outlaw Trail:

• 1961 - Gray taught at Tougaloo College. He was adviser to the Jackson Youth Council of the NAACP. He was a member of the executive committee of the Jackson NAACP and a member of the Board of Directors of the Mississippi State Conference of NAACP Branches.

• 1962-63 - Primary organizer of the Jackson Movement.

• 1963 - Field Organizer for the radical Southern Conference Educational Fund [SCEF].

• 1966-67 - He organized militant grassroots anti-poverty movements — i.e., Peoples' Program on Poverty — in the Northeastern North Carolina Black Belt.

• 1967 - Gray moved to the Pacific Northwest and worked in a variety of social justice causes.

• 1969-73 - Hunter Gray organized more than 300 block clubs on the South/Southwest side of Chicago. He brought together African American, Puerto Rican, Chicano, and some Native American people to fight the police and the Daley Machine during that time. On the North side of Chicago, he worked for the American Indian Center. He worked with Susan K. Power, Bill Redcloud and Willard LaMere. He was the key organizer of the regional all-Indian Native American Community Organizational Training Center and served for many years as its Chair.

• 1974-75 - Gray was active organizing cultural and social justice events at Iowa State University with Elliott Ricehill, Alice Hatfield Azure and many other Indian students in numerous Native grassroots services and rights campaigns. He also taught full-time at the University. He was involved in teaching and helping Native American prisoners at the Iowa State Penitentiary as well.

• 1976-78 - Gray served as the social justice director for the 12 county Roman Catholic Dioces of Rochester, New York. His emphasis was on Native rights, union labor and anti-racism. Through the New York State Catholic Committee, he promoted union strikes for the Native mink skinners and worked on Iroquois land claims cases.

• 1979-1980 - He moved back to the Southwest and worked on anti-uranium causes. Gray also taught at the Navajo Community College [now Dine' College].

• 1981-1994 - Gray taught at University of North Dakota. He worked on civil rights and Native American rights issues. He defended the civil liberties for members of the Native American Church.

• 1994-Present - Hunter Gray returned to the Mountain West and now lives in Pocatello, Idaho. Gray is involved in anti-Indian prejudice and discrimination causes. He also writes a great deal now on social justice and civil liberties.

Supporting Civil Rights

In the 1960's, radical activist Hunter Gray, attempted to enlist Ralph Helstein, Charles Hayes and especially Jesse Prosten to help finance "civil rights" activists in the South.

In April, 1966, with the Civil Rights Movement having now substantially opened up much of the South, I met at Chicago with Ralph Helstein, President of United Packinghouse Workers and Vice-President Charles Hayes and Director of Organization Jesse Prosten.

Packinghouse, of course, although AFL-CIO, was certainly anything except a business union. Its leaders were essentially radicals. I carried a complex but clear and direct proposal from the Deep South that Jesse -- a friend -- strongly supported: that Packinghouse would fund a number of proven civil rights organizers in Mississippi and the Carolinas who would focus on broad community grassroots organization. And those new, broad organizations would both stimulate new, interracial unionism in those Southern settings and would provide significantly tangible community support for union organizing and eventual strike actions. In the end, although Jesse -- Director of Organization -- continued to support the proposal with the greatest vigour, Packinghouse backed away. Again --money, more than anything else.

DSA Anti-racism Commission

In 2002, Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America Anti-racism Commission was Duane Campbell. Hunter Gray was the regional organizer for the Northwest.

CCDS

In 2010, Hunter Gray was the Idaho contact for Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

External Links

• Article on Hunter Gray, Part I Marxism Mailing List Archive, Jan. 10, 2001
• Article on Hunter Gray, Part II Marxism Mailing List Archive, Jan. 10, 2001
• Outlaw Trail
• The Lair of the Hunter Bear
• The Lunatic Gazette

References

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