50 Years Ago

The refusal of the Gallup City Police to pick up intoxicated persons and charge them with disorderly conduct was in its third week and so far no exposure deaths were reported, although temperatures in the city had been below freezing every night.

Back in 1982, as Peter MacDonald was running for a fourth term as tribal chairman, he agreed to sit down with me and discuss some political issues. I think he must have been in a good mood since he didn’t put any restrictions on the questions, something he had been doing for the previous couple of years, probably at the suggestion of his wife, Wanda, who often said she didn’t like some of the articles I wrote about him.

Fifty years ago, all of the towns bordering the reservation were experiencing major problems with homeless Navajo living in the streets and panhandling to raise enough funds to buy cheap wine or beer.

Ted Mitchell, the controversial head of DNA-Peoples Legal Services, the federal legal aid agency on the Navajo Reservation, announced this week that he was stepping down as director on Feb. 28, bringing joy to a number of tribal officials who have been trying for more than a year to get him removed.

Navajo Tribal Chairman Raymond Nakai would later admit that what he did 50 years ago this week was a long shot, but he really thought he had a chance to finally resolve, once and for all time, the long-standing land dispute between the Navajos and the Hopis.