The Hovey murals in the basement of Thayer Hall were painted between 1937 and 1939. Seven years after they were finished, John Trudell was born in Nebraska. These two seemingly dissimilar events are little known to most people. Trudell is a person of national consequence; the existence of the murals a local, College matter.
John Trudell is a Native American rights activist, a Santee Sioux of the Lakota people. He was part of the occupation of Alcatraz in 1969 and part of Wounded Knee in the winter of 1973.
The Hovey murals are racist pub art.
When John Trudell and Bad Dog performed in Spaulding Auditorium this month, the existence of the Hovey murals was an insult to him. They are a daily insult to the Native American students at Dartmouth.
The murals are a series of scenes depicting the founding of the College as told in a scurrilous poem by Richard Hovey 1886. Painted on canvas by Walter Humphrey '14, and attached to the Thayer walls with white lead, they cannot be removed without destroying them. The murals have been covered since 1979.
A section of the murals rests in the Hood Museum's Bernstein Study Center. It depicts naked and drunken Native Americans, some with a large "D" dripping green paint down their chests, while the great, fat, Eleazor Wheelock mixes another batch of drink for them. The other panels are equably disrespectful.
Possibly created as a response to the Orozco Murals in Baker Library, the Hovey murals exhibit a depraved view of America's native people while Orozco's work celebrates the great civilizations of Mexico and depicts the despoliation of Indian culture by European invaders. The irony cannot be overlooked. Neither can the presence of Trudell on the same campus where a racist and embarrassing artwork is preserved and hidden away.
John Trudell, poet and artist, a National Chairman of the American Indian Movement, speaks his mind, using the colonizer's language to fight for the rights of native people. He opposes a dominant society that continues to push them away from its prosperity. He occupies the margin of American political life, because he struggles against the ongoing oppression of Native Americans.
Native people are the poorest of America's poor, and they continue to be dispossessed of their land and culture. Their sovereignty is picked at by the state; like a vulture, bit by bit it grabs, then flies away -- but always comes back for more. It is this ongoing national obscenity that prompted the College to hide the murals.
Immediately, knee-jerking and fumbling for an answer, some folks will say, "That was over a hundred years ago. I live in New Hampshire, my ancestors' didn't have anything to do with the reservations or those Indians." I've heard this reaction before, but the offended person was speaking of African-Americans and their search for justice.
Some things cannot be explained away by ancestry. The burden of injustice cannot be shifted to someone else, especially if the same oppressive and destructive colonial practices continue. The existence of the Hovey murals is an example of that continuity.
I'm not a reactionary, damn the National Endowment for the Arts, Jesse Helms redneck, but I believe some things by their very existence are corrosive to the soul of a nation. If the murals needed to be covered in 1979, they certainly need to be uncovered in 2000. Many people aren't aware of these murals, and they need to find out about them -- why they were painted and why they came to be covered. Dartmouth's Native American students know about them, and one of those students, Adam Carvell, said, "I'm tired of having to explain to people why they are offensive. I don't need to do that anymore."
Take another sample of the murals for the Hood and the Bernstein Center. Document their existence, their style, form and design. Use them to teach. Uncover them for two weeks and invite the College and the Upper Valley to see them. Acknowledge this dreadful but important part of Dartmouth's growth for surely it is the maturing of the College that caused these murals to be hidden in the first place. Let the light in -- then tear them down. Art can never be a justification for oppression and racism. If it is racist, it is not art.
When the bonfire is built next year, save 20 or 30 feet of space inside it for the remains of the murals. Do as Carvell says, "drag them out, take them to the Green and burn them."
As they burn, listen to the words of John Trudell; "We are borrowing the present from the past and the future. We create our own reality by our intelligence, with our imagination, creativity and thoughts. We are not guilty of anything, we are responsible for everything."
Listen also to Stokely Carmichael, "Burn, baby, burn."
Photographs of the Hovey murals can be seen at the Hood Museum.
