Marlon Brando, right, center, takes the first steps to hand over his lands to American Indians, Dec. 31, 1974, during a ceremony in Agoura, Calif. Others are Semu Huaurte, medicine man of the 23-tribe Redwind Association. In between Huaurte and Brando is Sen. John Tunney (D-Calif.). Brando apologized for being "400 years too late" in giving the property, about 40 acres.
Follow us @
https://www.facebook.com/iloveancestryhttps://twitter.com/LovingAncestryhttp://iloveancestry.tumblr.comhttp://pinterest.com/iloveancestryhttp://www.instagram.com/iloveancestryBrando we want to remember, especially now, is the actor who pulled back in the 1960s to focus on supporting the Civil Rights Movement and the broader struggles against war and oppression.
Marlon Brando is a cultural icon whose popularity has endured for over six decades. His rise to national attention in the 1950s had a profound effect on the motion picture industry and influenced the broader scope of American culture.
Marlon Brando's childhood was not happy. His parents drank too much alcohol and argued often. Dorothy Brando blamed her husband for the failure of her acting career. The older Marlon Brando did not have a good relationship with his son. In a book about his life, the actor wrote that his father never had anything good to say about his son.
Marlon Brando moved to New York City when he was nineteen years old in 1943. He took acting classes at the New School for Social Research.
In 1946, Brando showed his dedication to the battle against racial segregation in the United States.
Brando's participation in the Black American civil rights movement actually began well before King's death. In the early 1960s, he contributed thousands of dollars to both the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (S.C.L.C.) and to a scholarship fund established for the children of slain Mississippi N.A.A.C.P. leader Medgar Evers.
By this time, Brando was already involved in films that carried messages about human rights: Sayonara, which addressed interracial romance, and The Ugly American, depicting the conduct of US officials abroad and its deleterious effect on the citizens of foreign countries.
In August 1963, he participated in the March on Washington arm in arm with James Baldwin along with fellow celebrities Harry Belafonte, James Garner, Charlton Heston, Burt Lancaster, and Sidney Poitier.
Brando also, along with Paul Newman, participated in the freedom rides, went down South with the freedom riders to desegregate inter-State bus lines.
In defiance of state law, American Indians protested the denial of treaty rights by fishing the Puyallup River on March 2, 1964.
Inspired by the civil rights movement sit-ins, Brando, Episcopal clergyman John Yaryan from San Francisco, and Puyallup tribal leader Bob Satiacum caught salmon in the Puyallup without state permits. The action was called a fish-in and resulted in Brando's arrest.
"When they laid down their arms, we murdered them. We lied to them. We cheated them out of their lands. We starved them into signing fraudulent agreements that we called treaties which we never kept. We turned them into beggars on a continent that gave life for as long as life can remember. And by any interpretation of history, however twisted, we did not do right. We were not lawful nor were we just in what we did. For them, we do not have to restore these people, we do not have to live up to some agreements, because it is given to us by virtue of our power to attack the rights of others, to take their property, to take their lives when they are trying to defend their land and liberty, and to make their virtues a crime and our own vices virtues."
It is tragic that we live in a world where most people's talents never get to see the light of day. It is equally tragic that those like Brando who actually get the opportunity to spread their creative wings, can be consumed and yanked apart in process. Yet whether Brando was on the top of Hollywood or alone and embittered, he never forgot what side he was on.
