Bordertown Clashes, Resource Wars, and Contested Territories in the Four Corners: The Turbulent 1970s

A one-of-a-kind lyrical and fast-paced memoir of the frontlines and trenches of Native liberation in the Four Corners and Southwest in the 1970s. From the late summer of 1972 to the late summer of 1974, John Redhouse and many other Red Power activists put everything on the line to organize mass movements and direct actions for Native liberation. It was an extraordinary time defined by stunning victories and intense struggles. In just a few short years, Redhouse and his contemporaries changed Navajo and Native people’s collective destinies. So profound was their impact that it can still be felt fifty years later. 

 Written in the first-person with a spirit of generosity and witness, John Redhouse describes the fever pitch of the times, focusing on the racist and exploitative bordertowns in the Four Corners area of the Southwest region. He interweaves a piercing critique of violence against Navajo people in reservations bordertowns with a condemnation of the violence that rapidly growing mineral extraction in and around the Navajo Nation introduced to Navajo life. 

 As a firsthand participant in some of the most important twentieth-century struggles against this manifold violence, Redhouse is one of only a few grassroots intellectuals who can tell this story. Bordertown Clashes, Resource Wars, Contested Territories: The Four Corners in the Turbulent 1970s brings readers to the enduring struggle for Native liberation, traced over half a century ago, where John Redhouse and many more led a revolution that continues to this day.

John Redhouse was born and raised in Farmington, New Mexico and graduated from Farmington High School in 1969. He was a longtime Navajo and Indian rights activist. Redhouse worked with the Indians Against Exploitation in Gallup, N.M. in 1972–1973 and the Coalition for Navajo Liberation in Farmington in 1974. He was Associate Director of the National Indian Youth Council in Albuquerque, N.M. from 1974 to 1978. Redhouse also served on the City of Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board in 1978 and the New Mexico State Advisory Committee to the United States Civil Rights Commission in 1978-79. In 1979–1980, he worked with the American Indian Environmental Council in Albuquerque; Reno, Nevada; and Flagstaff, Arizona. Redhouse was a writer and consultant from 1981 to 1987. In 1988–1989, he worked with the Tonantzin Land Institute in Albuquerque. Redhouse was a consultant from 1990 to 2012. He is a graduate of the University of New Mexico and a U.S. Army veteran.

Melanie Yazzie (Diné) is Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and coauthor of Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation and The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save the Earth. She cohosts and produces the podcast Red Power Hour, which is sponsored by Red Media, a Native-led media organization she cofounded in 2019. She also does community organizing with The Red Nation, a grassroots Native-run organization she cofounded in 2014 that is committed to Indigenous liberation and decolonization.

Jennifer Denetdale is a citizen of the Navajo Nation. She is a professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico and the chair of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission. She is the author of Reclaiming Diné History: The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita and two Diné histories for young adults. She is a coauthor of Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation and has published numerous journal articles and chapter essays on Indigenous feminisms, Diné nation building, and bordertown studies. She is the recipient of two Henry Luce Foundation grants to mount a Milton Snow Photography exhibition in collaboration with the Navajo Nation Museum.