What is Joe Medicine Crow-High Bird famous for?
In 1939-40, while going to graduate school at the University of Southern California, he was recruited to work on the script of one of the defining movies of the Custer legend, “They Died With Their Boots On.” Medicine Crow, who grew up near the battlefield, had long heard stories about it from his grandfather and other scouts who had worked for Custer and witnessed his end. Medicine Crow says he did not put a sufficiently glowing spin on Custer, though, and he was fired. “I said, ‘Some day I’m going to write my own Custer production and tell it like it is.’ ” Sources: http://www.custerslaststand.org/source/medcrow.
Joseph Medicine Crow (born October 27, 1913) is a Crow historian and author. His writings on Native American history and reservation culture are considered seminal works, but he is probably best known for his writings and lectures concerning the Battle of Little Big Horn. He is the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Bronze Star, the Chevalier Légion d’honneur, and an enrolled member of the Crow Nation, or Crow Tribe of Indians. On June 25, 2008, he received two military decorations, the Bronze Star and the Légion d’honneur. On July 17, 2008, Senators Max Baucus, Jon Tester, and Mike Enzi introduced a bill to award him the Congressional Gold Medal. His book Counting Coup: Becoming a Crow Chief on the Reservation and Beyond, written about his life, was chosen by the National Council for the Social Studies as a “Notable Tradebook for Young People” in 2007. Joe Medicine Crow received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the nation’s highest civilian honor) from President Bar
Joe Medicine Crow-High Bird: The last living Plains Indian war chief and author of seminal works in Native American history is also the last person alive to have received direct oral testimony from a participant in the Battle of the Little Bighorn: his grandfather, a scout for Gen. George Custer. Sources: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/12/medal.of.
