The Sun Child was conceived by Harold Gray, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe, as an educational newspaper aimed at teaching Native American schoolchildren about the history and culture of their various tribes.
Along with Charles Courchene, an Assiniboine, Gray first published The Sun Child in 1979. Before it was forced to cease publishing in 1981 due to lack of funds, it was being read in schools, both tribal and non-tribal, in over 30 states.
Republishing this educational newspaper will hopefully provide accurate information to both tribal and non-tribal schoolchildren alike about the customs and history, current and past, of the original inhabitants of the Americas.
Long Standing Bear Chief – Harold Ernest Gray
Long Standing Bear Chief (aka Harold Ernest Gray) died Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010 at the Blackfeet Community Hospital, Browning, due to heart failure and complications due to diabetes.
Wake services began Monday, Sept. 27 and will continue through Wednesday, Sept.
A traditional Blackfeet prayer service will be held beginning at 2 p.m. on
Wednesday. Whitted Funeral Chapel, Cut Bank, is in charge of the funeral
arrangements. Long Standing Bear Chief was born Nov. 9, 1941, in Browning, to Ernest and Josie (McKay) Gray. He attended Browning schools and graduated in 1960 from Browning High School. He went on to the University of Montana where he received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, and was an original founder of the Indian Students Association’s Kyi Yo Club, which he named. He also attended the University of Minnesota where he pursued a doctoral degree.
Harold spent many years as an educator. His professional career included work as a high school and college instructor; first Director of Indian Studies at the University of Montana; Director of the Chippewa Cree Tribal Research Program at Rocky Boy; Head Start Director, Browning; and educator with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Education Department in Lame Deer. As president of Bear Chief and Associates, a consulting firm operated with his twin brother, he provided technical assistance to many tribes, tribal programs and schools throughout the U.S.
Long Standing Bear Chief spent a great deal of his career as a freelance author, historian and traditional artist. He was often sought by people for information and knowledge regarding tribal history, traditions and laws regarding indigenous people, their governments and their rights.
Long Standing Bear Chief taught his children to be proud of their Indian ancestry, as well as to celebrate their diverse ethnic backgrounds. He was an enrolled Blackfeet, but also claimed Chippewa/Cree, Mohawk, French and Scottish ancestry. But above all else he was a fighter for Indigenous causes. In his last years he worked hard on the Constitutional reform for the Blackfeet Nation, seeing it as an opportunity to leave a beautiful legacy for generations to come.