User:Urve/The Warpath

The Warpath was a Native American newspaper that ran issues from 1968 to 1973. Established as the official newsletter of Lehman Brigthman's Red Power organization United Native Americans, it commentated on issues relating to the indigenous peoples of the Americas, though most of its focus was on Native Americans in particular. A militant paper, its contributors included both professional activists and community members.

Publication and contents
Lehman Brightman, a Native American civil rights activist and journalist, established the Red Power and pan-Indian organization United Native Americans (UNA) in 1968 and began publishing The Warpath as its official newsletter that year. Although established as a 12-page paper, it later grew to 16 pages. It had a bifurcated subscription model: Those with Native American ancestry paid a subscription of $3 ($1 for members of the UNA), and those without paid $5. It had a relatively small circulation, and after 1970, was published with some irregularity.

The paper discussed issues relevant to the indigenous peoples of the Americas, though most of its attention was paid to those pertaining to Native Americans of the United States. According to John M. Coward, a scholar of the Native American press, the paper was used to "define and police [Brightman's] version of Native American militancy". Compared to other Red Power publications, according to Coward, The Warpath was "arguably ... angrier and more militant", though less militant than the American Indian Movement as a whole.

The Warpath regularly commented on the Bureau of Indian Affairs, education, Native American literature, and published poetry. Like its contemporary publication Americans Before Columbus (published by the National Indian Youth Council), the newspaper carried work by both professional activists and community members, such as high school students. Poetry included "Songs from the Adventist (Ghost Dance) Religion", a repurposed and translated compilation of poems found in James Mooney's 1896 book about the Ghost Dance; scholar Seonghoon Kim describes the poem's use as a "throwback to the previous pan-Indigenous activity of the late nineteenth century". Kim writes that the poetry of The Warpath seeks to integrate non-Native activists into the UNA's activities as a kind of "symbolic integration of whites into future Native communities". Coward writes that Brightman's investigative reporting on schooling conditions was the paper's "most significant journalistic achievement" which elevated it from publishing "anti-government screeds or Red Power cheerleading" to thoughtful exposés.

The paper ceased publication in 1973 for unknown reasons.