Native American activist Lehman Brightman dies at 87
professor and Native American activist, died Sunday, May 18, 2017 at Kaiser
Hospital in Walnut Creek. (Photo Courtesy of Quanah Brightman)
Lehman L. Brightman, a proud member of the Sioux tribe, activist and longtime East Bay college history professor who rebelled against the U.S. government’s account of history, died Sunday.
His son, Quanah Brightman, confirmed his death, saying “the world lost a great leader today.” He was 87 and died by his son’s side at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Walnut Creek on Father’s Day.
History books are required reading in college classes on U.S. history. Brightman, however, was fond of warning his students at Contra Costa College in San Pablo that history and historical figures found in those books were not fond of him or his fellow American Indians, so he never spoke fondly of them.
A Sioux and Creek Indian born on the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation in South Dakota in 1930, Brightman talked often about his destitute beginnings. Barrel-chested and standing about 6 feet 6, he was a running back for Oklahoma A&M, now Oklahoma State University, and served in the Marines during the Korean War before he set out for California.
He earned a master’s degree at UC Berkeley and became a professor and fixture in the Bay Area Indian activism of the 1960s and ’70s, when students went on strike at San Francisco State University, antiwar protests roiled UC Berkeley, and the Black Panther Party formed in Oakland.
In 1968, he founded the United Native Americans, a nonprofit to promote the progress and welfare of Indians, and a year later was instrumental in the creation of Cal’s first ethnic studies classes, in particular the nation’s first Native American studies program.
The father of three sons took part in the takeovers of Alcatraz Island and Wounded Knee, and helped organize the occupation of Mount Rushmore in 1971. At the University of Oregon in 1970, he spoke about an awakening among native people.
“They’re defending themselves, not with violence. But all of a sudden, you have a new Indian emerging who is developing a new way to fight — the way of the tomahawk and the bow and arrow are long gone,” he said, adding that his people must become doctors, lawyers and teachers to help each other.
“He led the charge for letting the public know about the issues that plagued Indians both on and off the reservation,” said Joseph A. Myers, executive director of the National Indian Justice Center. “He should be remembered for that.”
In 1974, the outspoken activist arrived at Contra Costa College and found an eager audience among the community college students in blue-collar San Pablo.
He held on to his tenured position in 1976, when the FBI raided his El Cerrito home to arrest Dennis Banks, the founder of the American Indian Movement and one of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives, whom Brightman was harboring. Brightman was arrested, too, but the charges did not stick. In 1978, Brightman traveled from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. in a spiritual walk known as the “Longest Walk.”
Until his retirement in 2006, the professor brought to the classroom his own brand of history, a blender full of humble beginnings, activism and disdain for authority. He peppered his lectures with salty, racist language, which became legend among his students, many from similarly poor backgrounds. Brightman was known on campus as a habitual line crosser. More than once, he vowed to stop swearing in class but never could.
He referred to Ronald Reagan, Christopher Columbus and Lt. Col. George Custer in ways that cannot be printed in this newspaper. He read the names on the class roster before each class, even when most professors had migrated to computers to check attendance. The professor wore a ponytail under his cowboy hat, blue jeans, cowboy boots and a bolo tie.
Former student Marc Carig, now a sportswriter at Newsday, recalled Brightman did all the talking, rarely taking questions from his history and sociology students.
“When you signed up for one of his classes, you knew you were in for an earful,” Carig said. “But once you got past the initial shock of his expletive-laced bombast, you realized that this man wasn’t just teaching history. He was a living piece of it. It’s one thing to read of war or the battle for civil rights. It’s quite another to hear from somebody who lived through the fight on both ends.”
His final years were full of sorrow. Brightman, a longtime resident of El Cerrito and Pinole, suffered a stroke in 2011 and was moved to a nursing and rehabilitation facility in Walnut Creek. The family lost their Pinole home to foreclosure. And two of his sons died untimely deaths.
In 2015, Lehman Brightman III was struck and killed by a train in Richmond. Four months later, Lakota Brightman, a U.S. Army medic who served in Afghanistan, was stabbed to death outside a corner store on Carlson Boulevard in Richmond.
Quanah Brightman, the lone surviving son, said the death of his father is especially hard after losing his two brothers.
“I am happy to have spent all the time I did as his volunteer caregiver for my father,” Quanah Brightman said. “He was my best friend and mentor.”
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