“Hello Choctaw” and the Role It Played in Restoring the Choctaw Nation Sovereignty

 

The Choctaw Nation was coming to an end. A bill passed in 1959 to terminate the tribe would go into effect August 1970. 

Not all the Choctaw people even knew it was happening. But word spread from one friend to another and fanned a fire. Hundreds of Choctaws let their voices be heard by circulating petitions, making phone calls, and writing letters to congressmen.

Hours before the Choctaw Termination Act of 1959 went fully into effect, President Nixon signed a bill that repealed it.

Notable during that time was a mimeographed newsletter called “Hello Choctaw” also stylized as “Halito Chahta.” Published by the Oklahoma City Council of Choctaws, it regularly dispensed political and community news for Choctaw people in hopes that the Nation could be revitalized around our sovereignty and culture. 

This initiative was carried out by individual Choctaws at their own expense. One newsletter said, “We are free, independent, usually about broke, and not looking for any finances from any government or other organizations.”

They emphasized that no matter where Choctaws were living, they are Choctaw:

“A Choctaw in Dallas is a Choctaw. A Choctaw in Nashoba is a Choctaw. A Choctaw in Arkansas is a Choctaw. The Choctaws who were fighting in Korea are Choctaws. The Choctaw soldiers in Vietnam now are Choctaws. When Joseph Oklahombi was in France, he was still a full-blood Choctaw. 

“Wherever we are, we are Choctaws, and we are proud to be Choctaws.”

The newsletter continued a few more years, advocating for the tribe’s right to elect our own leadership. It ardently supported David Gardner’s run for chief in the first popular election the tribe had experienced in decades. Gardner was disqualified because he was only 31, not meeting the minimum age of 35 at the time to run for chief. 

In the next election, David Gardener was voted in and began implementing his “7 goals for the Choctaw Nation in the ’70s.” One of those goals was a tribal newspaper which grew from that simple mimeographed newsletter and became the “Hello Choctaw” newspaper.

The first edition was November 1, 1975. The masthead read: “Published by the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Clark David Gardner, Principal Chief.”

 Several editions of this groundbreaking newspaper are stored at U.S.Art in Dallas under the care of the Chahta Foundation. They were donated by Chief Gardner’s granddaughter, Randi Dawn Gardner Hardin, along with a mountain of boxes and papers about the restoration of the Choctaw Nation in the ’70s and ’80s. She rescued them from an old well house before they were lost forever to time and memory.

Randi is a former Chahta Foundation scholarship recipient, carrying on her grandfather’s legacy of pursuing higher education. Her master’s thesis was entitled, “Hello Choctaw! Termination, Self-Determination, and Choctaw Tribal Governance.”

Chief Gardner advocated for higher education and for revitalizing our language and traditions. Editions of “Hello Choctaw” featured language lessons and traditional stories. The paper also highlighted Choctaws in the arts sector, community news, a calendar of events, and letters to the editor.

Those eight pages of the first newspaper represented a dynamic change in the Choctaw Nation of coming together as a community and a nation once again.

In early 1977, stories of Chief Gardener’s cancer found their way into the paper. He thanked tribal members for their support of himself and his family through the difficult time. February 1, 1978, Chief Gardner’s passing covered the front page. 

The newspaper had continued to grow over its three-year lifespan and would print stories on business owners and entrepreneurs, WWII veterans, tribal health, adult education, and the Choctaw English dictionary. 

The final edition held 16 pages of tribal politics and community news. It also featured the graduating seniors of 1978 from Jones Academy, a brief history on the Choctaw Academy in Kentucky, and the site of Oklahoma’s oldest church at the time, a log chapel built in 1852.

The last page was headlined “Faces of Friendly Choctaws.” It has Choctaw phrases pasted with photos in scrapbook style, showing diverse ages, places, and backgrounds of our people.

 

Credit: Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer