Earl old Person (1929-2021) Political leader

Earl Old Person Political leader (1929-2021)

Short Bio 

Cheif Earl Old Person, was an American Indian political leader and the honorary lifetime chief of the Blackfeet tribe in Montana, United States. In 1978 Old Person was appointed honorary lifetime Chief of the Blackfeet Nation. His Blackfeet names are Cold Wind or Charging Home. His parents were Juniper and Molly Old Person. He was born and raised on the reservation where he attended Starr Elementary school and Browning High School in Browning Montana.

In 1954 he was elected to the Tribal Business Council and in 1964 he was elected Chairman of the Business Council, a position he held for 16 years. After 50 years in 2008 he ended his membership to the Council and started the tribes first ever Archives project of the Blackfeet Tribal governmental system. Old Person was inducted into the Montana Indian Athletic Hall of Fame in 2020. He passed away at the Blackfeet Community Hospital after a long battle with cancer

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Chief Earl Old Person was a full-blooded member of the Blackfeet tribe, the son of Juniper and Molly Old Person. He was raised along with many siblings on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. He went to elementary school in the community of Starr School, Montana and graduated in 1947 from Browning High School in Browning, Montana. His childhood home lacked central heat and indoor plumbing, but he credited his success in life to his parents, who continually encouraged him to try hard and to excel in school. He was raised in a traditional manner, speaking the Blackfoot language as his first language, only learning English when he reached elementary school.

Old Person learned many traditional Blackfeet stories, songs, and dances, his memory helping preserve the Blackfeet culture decades later.“He had this, kind of, genius-type ability to hear Indian music and store that in his mind, and just hear it once.”

His family said that each day his parents greeted their children with the words, “IItahmiskinatoonii niipowaht iikakiima”, meaning “good morning, get up, try hard.”He grew up within the horse culture of the Blackfeet people. “I grew up on horseback; always bareback, I never used a saddle. I spent a lot of time around livestock.”

His musical skill led to public performances, In 1936, when he was only seven years old, the Browning High School basketball team earned its first trip to the state tournament in Great Falls in 1936, and Old Person performed at halftime. At age nine, he traveled to Cleveland and New York City for six weeks, where he performed traditional Blackfeet song and dance at schools, colleges and civic organizations as part of an effort to raise funds to build a new church on the reservation.



As a teenager, he played basketball for Browning High School, keeping his long braids in spite of pushback from his coaches. He said of the experience, “I had fun over it.” Another highlight of his teen years was a 1947 trip to Moisson, France to attend the 6th World Scout Jamboree, where he was the only Native American in attendance. He brought his father’s tepee and set it up as his campsite.

Earl Old Person American Indian political leader ( Career )

In 1950, Old Person got a job in the tribe’s land office, where one of his jobs was to be an interpreter for Blackfeet people who did not understand or speak English. At the time, only about one-fifth of the Blackfeet tribal members were considered full-blooded, and the tribe, like many others, was viewed as a candidate for termination.

It is important to note that in our Indian language the only translation for termination is to “wipe out” or “kill off”… how can we plan our future when the Indian Bureau threatens to wipe us out as a race? It is like trying to cook a meal in your tipi when someone is standing outside trying to burn the tipi down.

Earl Old Person, 1960, speaking for the National Congress of American Indians against US plans for tribal termination.

He was encouraged by tribal elders to enter politics, and was elected to his first term as a member of the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council in 1954, the youngest person ever elected to the post.He was first elected tribal chairman in 1964 and served as chair for 16 of the subsequent 22 two-year terms between 1964 to 2008. He continued as a member of the tribal council until he retired in 2016, serving in elected office longer than any other elected official in Montana history. He was also the longest-serving elected tribal official in America.

In July 1978, Old Person was appointed honorary lifetime Chief of the Blackfeet Nation. He considered this the greatest honor ever bestowed upon him.The last principal chief of the Blackfeet Nation, White Calf, had died in Washington, DC in 1903. His son, James White Calf, born about 1858, succeeded to the title and lived to be well over 100. Upon his death, the family of James White Calf formally bestowed the tribal chieftainship upon Old Person. His advocacy included promoting legislation that included the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, which protected access to traditional Native sites and religious freedom.He also was inducted into the Kainai Chieftainship in Canada.

Old Person was president of the National Congress of American Indians from 1969 to 1971. The organization formed in 1944 in part to combat the U.S. government’s termination and assimilation policies of the time. Among his accomplishments, he served on a committee that founded the nation’s first tribally owned bank. He also was a member of a significant number of civic and governmental organizations, including president of the Affiliated Tribes of the Northwest and was named Outstanding Indian of the Year in 1977 by the Chicago Indian Council. In 1993, Old Person delivered the first-ever State of the Indian Nation address to the Montana Legislature.

In the course of his career, he met every U.S. President from Harry Trumanto Barack Obama. He was invited by Queen Elizabeth to attend the 1978 Commonwealth Games, where he met with the British royal family and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. He also traveled to Tehran in 1971 as part of a celebration of the 2,500-year history of the Persian Empire. There, he inadvertently broke a 1000-year tradition when he gave a speech and asked the Shah of Iran to stand up. Earl old Person (1929-2021) Political leader

All of these presidents that we come under, I always say they mean well, but sometimes they get trapped.”

Earl Old Person, 2020”

Though he never attended college, Old Person promoted higher education and in 1991, the University of Montana endowed a scholarship in his name for Blackfeet students. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1994 from the University of Montana in Humane Letters. In 1998, he was awarded the Jeannette Rankin Civil Liberties Award by the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana.In 1999, he was the first person awarded the University of Lethbridge’s Christine Miller Memorial Award for Excellence in Native American Studies. In 2007, he was inducted into the Montana Indian Hall of Fame. Earl old Person (1929-2021) Political leader

In retirement, Old Person began an Archives Project to preserve Blackfeet Tribal Governmental documents. He also worked to preserve Blackfeet History and Culture to teach young members about their ancestors through his leadership of the Charging Home Society for Pikuni Education and Cultural Preservation Program.

Old Person worked to preserve the culture and language of the Blackfeet nation. Not only was he a musician and a native speaker of the Blackfeet language, he also remembered many traditions during a time when much knowledge was lost. John Murray, the Blackfeet Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, explained, “Earl stayed close to it and he’s been an advocate for promoting the language and was able to retain them songs. So when the culture started coming back, they would go to him…he was a repository for that type of music.”

Earl Old Person (1929-2021) Death

On October 13, 2021, Old Person died from cancer at the age of 92. US Senator Jon Tester stated, “Chief Old Person was a fierce advocate for the Blackfeet Nation and all of Indian Country for his entire life, and the world is a better place because he was in it.”