Not many people are aware of the racism of Frank Baum, author of the much beloved “The Wizard of Oz”. I felt it important and devoted a few pages to it in Unending Wonders of a Subatomic World or In Search of the Great Penguin.
As Marty says, it’s refreshing news that a couple of Baum’s descendants have come forward to apoloize for two editorials he wrote on Sitting Bull and Wounded Knee, for his Saturday Pioneer newspaper which called for the extermination of American Indians.
Children of ‘Oz’ apologize for racism
By David Kranz
dkranz@argusleader.com
August 21, 2006Many generations of people have walked L. Frank Baum’s Yellow Brick Road, but two of his ancestors took another path through the Native American reservations of South Dakota last week, apologizing for him.
The issue is about two editorials Baum wrote in his Saturday Pioneer newspaper that he published during the three years he lived in Aberdeen during the 1890s. His commentary on Sitting Bull and Wounded Knee, written in 1890 and 1891, called for the extermination of Native Americans.
Two descendants of the author of “The Wizard of Oz,†Mac Hudson, a great-great-grandson from Tucson, Ariz., and Gita (Dorothy) Morena, a great-granddaughter from San Diego, came to the state accompanied by Sally Roesch Wagner, who did research for the Wounded Knee Survivors Association. She works for the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation. Baum was the son-in-law of Gage.
“We are here to apologize, to bear witness to the suffering to that kind of thinking and attitude and make reconciliation and begin healing. We felt called to do that, make a connection with the descendants’ survivors,†Morena said.
Leave a Reply