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Ward LeRoy Churchill (born October 2, 1947) is an American writer, activist, a left wing bigot, and academic. He is a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and author of over a dozen books and many essays.

Background

Early life and education

Churchill was born and grew up in a blue-collar family in Elmwood, Illinois. His parents, Maralyn and Jack Churchill, divorced while Ward was still a toddler. In March 1950, his mother married Henry Carlton Debo, an employee of Caterpillar in downstate Peoria, as a result of which Churchill has two half-brothers, Tom and Danny, and a half-sister, Terry. When he enrolled in Elmwood High School, Churchill went by the name Ward Debo, taking his stepfather's surname, but when he graduated in 1965, he was listed in his yearbook, the Ulmus, as Ward L. Churchill.

He was drafted by the U.S. Army and saw active service in the Vietnam War from 1966 to 1968. Military records through the Freedom of Information Act show he was trained as a projectionist and light truck driver. Radio host Bob Newman published these military records to dispute alleged 1987 claims by Churchill that he had served as a paratrooper trained in reconnaissance.Template:Inote Churchill later received his B.A. and M.A. in Communication from Sangamon State University, now the University of Illinois at Springfield.

In 1990, he joined the University of Colorado at Boulder as an assistant professor and was granted tenure the following year.

Writing

As a scholar, Churchill has written on Native American history and culture, and is particularly outspoken about the genocide inflicted on the indigenous peoples of North America by European settlers — repression that continues to this day.

In Fantasies of the Master Race (1992), Churchill examines the portrayal of Native Americans and the use of Native American symbols in popular American culture. He focuses on such phenomena as Tony Hillerman's mystery novels, the film Dances with Wolves, and the New Age movement, finding examples of cultural imperialism and exploitation. Churchill calls author Carlos Castaneda, who claims to reveal the teachings of a Yaqui Indian shaman, the "greatest hoax since Piltdown Man."

Churchill's Indians 'R' Us (1993), a sequel to Fantasies of the Master Race, further explores Native American issues in popular culture and politics. He examines the movie Black Robe, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation killings, Leonard Peltier, sports mascots, the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, and blood quantum laws, calling them tools of genocide. Churchill is particularly outspoken about New Age exploitations of shamanism and Native American sacred traditions, and the "do-it-yourself Indianism" of certain contemporary authors.

Struggle For The Land (reissued 2002) is a collection of essays in which Churchill chronicles the U.S. government's systematic exploitation of native land and the killing or displacement of the Native Americans who once inhabited it. He details Indian efforts in the 19th and 20th centuries to prevent defoliation and industrial practices such as surface mining.

Churchill's A Little Matter of Genocide (1998) is a survey of ethnic cleansing from 1492 to the present. He compares the treatment of North American Indians to a number of genocides in history, such as those in Cambodia and Armenia, and those of the Gypsies, Poles, and Jews by the Nazis.

In Perversions of Justice (2002), Churchill argues that the U.S. legal system was adapted to gain control over Native American people. Tracing the evolution of federal Indian law, Churchill argues that the principles set forth were not only applied to non-Indians in the U.S., but later adapted for application abroad. He concludes that this demonstrates the development of America's "imperial logic," which depends on a "corrupt form of legalism" to establish colonial control and empire.

In Agents of Repression (1988), co-authored by Jim Vander Wall, the authors describe "the secret war" against the Black Panther Party and American Indian Movement carried out during the late 1960s and '70s by the FBI under the COINTELPRO program. The COINTELPRO Papers (reissued 2002), also with Jim Vander Wall, examines a series of original FBI memos that detail the Bureau's activities against various leftist groups, from the U.S. Communist Party in the 1950s to activists concerned with Central American issues in the 1980s.

Activism

Churchill has been active since at least 1984 as the co-director of the Denver-based American Indian Movement of Colorado, an autonomous chapter of the American Indian Movement. In 1993, he and other local AIM leaders—including Russell Means, Glen Morris, Bob Robideau, and David Hill—broke with the national AIM leadership, including Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt and Vernon Bellecourt, claiming that all AIM chapters are autonomous. The schism continues, with the AIM claiming that the local AIM leaders are tools of the government being used against Indians.

Churchill has been a leader of Colorado AIM's annual protests in Denver against the Columbus Day holiday and its associated parade. These protests have brought Colorado AIM's leadership into conflict with some leaders in the Denver Italian-American community, the main supporters of the parade. Churchill and others have been arrested while protesting for acts such as blocking the parade.

Initially, some local American Indian support and advocacy organizations in the Denver metro area believed that the activities of the Colorado AIM chapter damage the work of the Colorado Indian Commission and Denver Indian Center. This was back in the early 90's. Since then, thousands of local indians annually particpate in the protest.

In April 1983, Churchill traveled to Tripoli and Benghazi as a representative of the AIM and the International Indian Treaty Council to meet Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya while a U.S. travel ban to that country was in place. The visit was intended to seek support from al-Qaddafi regarding the U.S. government's violation of Indian treaties.

Artwork

Apart from his academic position and writing, since the 1970s, Churchill has attained a certain notoriety as a visual artist. Works by Churchill, such as lithographs, woodcuts, and drawings are fairly widely exhibited in galleries of the American Southwest, and to some degree elsewhere. As with the work "Winter Attack", discussed below, Churchill frequently takes as subject matter of visual compositions historical photographs or other past works, particularly ones associated with Native American figures. Screen prints and other si