Can Osage Citizens Revive Fairfax?
Notes from America with Kai Wright
WNYC Studios
4.4 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 23 October 2023
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Killers of the Flower Moon, a new film directed by Martin Scorcese based on the bestselling book of the same name, tells the story of how greed and profound injustice took the lives of so many Osage. The film has helped people like Damon Waters, an Osage filmmaker and actor reconnect with his roots and imagine a different future for Fairfax, Okla., where the film takes place. Damon joins us to discuss the impact the film had on him and his upcoming documentary about the restoration of Tall Chief Theater.
We also hear from Allison Herrera, KOSU’s Indigenous affairs reporter, who brings us a note from Fairfax. We’ll meet Joe and Carol Conner and learn about their efforts to restore the historic Tall Chief Theater in downtown Fairfax. Joe, who is Osage, hopes that the attention brought by the film will get more people to invest money in Fairfax.
To learn more about the systemic issues that caused the murders of so many Osage, listen to more of Allison Herrera’s reporting for the podcast In Trust.
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“Notes from America” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. Tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on notesfromamerica.org.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What does a brighter future for you look like in this town? |
| 0:05.0 | I think it's hard to think of a future when people haven't really accepted or acknowledged the past. |
| 0:11.0 | When I was growing up here, am Osage and I didn't know about the murders until |
| 0:17.1 | David Grant's book came out. They didn't want to talk about it and we never understood but we do now. And then the people who are non-O-Sages I lived here |
| 0:25.0 | either didn't know or they were complicit at the time. |
| 0:28.0 | It was a nice looking little town. |
| 0:31.4 | There was lots of money. A lot of the money was of course siphed off from |
| 0:35.1 | old ages and built by white people. They didn't even really consider us human the way they |
| 0:40.4 | killed us off and poisoned us. So maybe that movie is the beginning to some healing. |
| 0:46.0 | How can you learn for this and encourage all of us to be better people. It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. Welcome to the show. |
| 1:09.0 | It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. |
| 1:12.0 | Welcome to the show. |
| 1:14.2 | And a special shout out to listeners |
| 1:16.2 | joining us for the first time this week |
| 1:18.1 | from K-M-U-W in Wichita, Kansas. |
| 1:20.8 | Great to have you in the community. Martin Scorsese's latest epic film hit theaters this weekend. |
| 1:27.2 | Killers of the Flower Moon gives the Hollywood treatment to a very real and painful history. |
| 1:36.0 | The film tells the story of the murder of a huge number of Osage citizens in the early 20th century. During that time, the Osage were among the wealthiest |
| 1:40.9 | people in the world because of oil underneath their reservation. |
| 1:44.8 | White people in Oklahoma wanted access to that wealth and they began to target the Osage in a |
| 1:49.6 | sprawling conspiracy to steal it through marriage and murder. The film is based on a book by |
| 1:55.2 | journalist David Grant which was itself a sensation when it was published five years ago. |
... |
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