Originally published in the Milwaukee Sentinel by Keith Spore • Saturday, July 26, 1969
Cree Indian folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie said here Friday night that she intended to present an endowment to the proposed Milwaukee Indian center.
Miss Sainte-Marie, who performed Friday in the midwest rock festival at state fair park, said that the endowment would be used to finance the teaching of Indian languages to young Indians here.
The proposed Indian center is the brainchild of the United Indians of Milwaukee, Inc (UIM).
Lawrence Jacob, UIM Chairman, said Friday that the organization had nearly completed plans to lease an old fire house from the city to house the center. The building is at 1554 W. Bruce st.
MRS. WAYNE MARTIN, a member of the UIM board of directors, said that the organization expected to move into the building about Sept. 15.
UIM members greeted Miss Sainte-Marie at Gen. Mitchell field Friday afternoon.
“She (Miss Sainte-Marie) said that money would be available to the center as soon as we had something concrete like an enrollment list,” Mrs. Martin said.
Miss Sainte-Marie acknowledged in an interview that the endowment would depend on the center’s ability to furnish an outline of plans for courses in Indian languages.
THE SIZE of the endowment has not been discussed, Miss Sainte-Marie said.
“I’m trying to start a program here, whereby the Indian people can learn the languages that are being lost,” she said.
Indian youths rarely learn their native dialects anymore, she added.
Miss Saint-Marie, who has a degree in oriental philosophy from the University of Massachusetts was orphaned as an infant.
She was adopted by parents of Micmac Indian descent and raised in Maine and Massachusetts. She now has a farm home in Maine.