Carole Hart is an award-winning television and film producer/writer. She
began her career in television working with her partner and husband,
Bruce Hart, as one of the original writers of Sesame Street, for which
she won her first Emmy.
She also produced, with Marlo Thomas, Free to
Be ... You and Me, the now classic children's album, best-selling book
and Peabody Award-winning television special.
She and Bruce created and
produced Hot Hero Sandwich, an innovative Emmy-winning NBC series for
adolescents. Her credits also include a number of movies and docudramas
made for television: Sooner or Later, a movie musical that generated a
top ten song and a Platinum soundtrack album: Leap of Faith, a
groundbreaking docudrama about a woman who brought her cancer into
remission through alternative means; and again teamed with Marlo Thomas,
a multi-award winning mixed-media documentary for Lifetime Television,
Our Heroes, Ourselves.
Rita Long Visitor Holy Dance,
and her sister Beatrice,
are Oglala Sioux and
live on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South
Dakota. They are members of the Crazy Horse band,
named after the great warrior, Crazy Horse.
The Pine Ridge Indian reservation is the most poverty-ridden area in America.
Unemployment rates are 85% and suicide rates are twice the national average.
These desperate conditions may be of benefit to the US government. The United States is pressuring the Lakota to sell
them the Black Hills. In 1868, the US signed the Fort Laramine Treaty, which set
aside the Black Hills for the Lakota. In 1869
gold was discovered, so the US
took back the land. Almost 140 years later, the Lakota remain in the fight for
the return of their Sacred Hills. Despite overwhelming poverty and oppression,
the people still refuse to sell their sacred lands. Such a purchase would mean
a sellout of the Lakota Nation, culture, religion, and values.
Grandmother Beatrice and Rita remember having good lives as children. They
were poor and worked hard. Their home was heated by firewood and lit by
kerosene lamps. Food came from their garden at the bottom of the hill. Most of
their water was hauled in buckets from the river to the house until 1985, when
Grandmother Beatrice had running water installed. Everything was done by hand.
Grandmother Rita reminds us of the sacred rites given to the Lakota people
by the White Buffalo Calf Woman nineteen generations ago. "Our spiritual
ways, our Sun Dance ways are encouraging prayer and bringing a lot of people
back," she says. "A lot of young boys and girls are coming into the
Sun Dance and are learning to reconnect with the source of their being."
Grandmother Rita and Beatrice Long Visitor Holy Dance expressed their
gratitude to the Grandmothers Council for being asked to join. They hope the
Grandmothers Council brings good things to the children, grandchildren, and
children to come and a voice to the Lakota people.
