Sacheen Littlefeather, Indigenous actress who refused Oscar, dies

Sacheen Littlefeather made Oscar historical past after a speech in 1973 on the mistreatment of Native People within the film trade.

Sacheen Littlefeather on stage on the Academy Museum of Movement Photos on September 17, 2022 in Los Angeles, California, the USA [File: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images]

Sacheen Littlefeather, an Indigenous US civil rights activist who campaigned in opposition to the mistreatment of Native People within the film trade, has died at 75.

The information was introduced on Sunday by the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences, which in August apologised to Littlefeather for the abuse she endured when she took a stand within the Seventies in opposition to anti-Indigenous racism in the USA movie trade.

Littlefeather, who's of Apache and Yaqui heritage, had made historical past by being the primary Native American to step foot on the Oscars award ceremony stage – the primary time the occasion was broadcast reside all over the world – and use the chance to make a political assertion.

Her dying was introduced on Twitter the place she was quoted as saying: “When I'm gone, at all times be reminded that everytime you stand to your fact, you'll be maintaining my voice and the voices of our nations and our folks alive.”

In 1973, Littlefeather didn't settle for the Finest Actor award for Marlon Brando for his efficiency within the movie The Godfather, however as an alternative got here on stage when his award was introduced and made a passionate 60-second speech on the insulting portrayal of Native People within the film trade.

She additionally touched on protests that have been going down throughout the identical yr in Wounded Knee in South Dakota amid a interval of mounting Indigenous activism within the US. The American Indian Motion occupied the positioning in protest of the nation’s legacy of anti-Indigenous violence and discrimination.

Sacheen Littlefeather seems on the Academy Awards ceremony to announce that Marlon Brando was declining his Oscar award on March 27, 1973. The transfer was meant to protest Hollywood’s remedy of Native People [File: AP Photo]

“This second resulted in her being professionally boycotted, personally attacked and harassed, and discriminated in opposition to for the final 50 years,” learn an Academy assertion from August 2022. The establishment issued a public apology to Littlefeather for the dangerous remedy and held a ceremony at its new Los Angeles museum honoring her two weeks in the past.

“I went up there, like a proud Indian lady with dignity, with braveness, with grace, and with humility,” Littlefeather mentioned on the museum occasion. “I knew that I needed to converse the reality. Some folks could settle for it. And a few folks could not.”

She mentioned Western star John Wayne needed to be restrained from bodily assaulting her as she left the stage after her well-known speech.

Littlefeather, a member of the Display Actors Guild, subsequently discovered it tough to get work in Hollywood, with casting administrators warned to not make use of her. Requested by reporters forward of the ceremony how she felt about having to attend so lengthy to listen to the phrase “sorry”, Littlefeather was philosophical.

“It’s by no means too late for an apology,” she mentioned. “It’s by no means too late for forgiveness.”