The Corporate Whale: ANCSA: Ten Years Later; The History
Description:
The program features commentary from Don Wright, president of the Alaska Federation of Natives, Reverend McCauliffe, Ted Stevens, former United States Senator, Willy Hensley, former president of the NANA Development Corporation, Joe Upicksoun, former president of the Arctic Slope Native Association, George Miller, representative of the Cook Inlet region, Cencil Barnes, representative of the Chugach Native Association, and William Paul, prominent Tlingit attorney. "'The Corporate Whale: ANCSA The First Ten Years' is a ten-part series of 15 minute radio programs. The programs focus on the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, called ANCSA: deliberations concerning the Act, the provisions of the Act itself and the mechanisms it creates to distribute the land and money granted, profiles of village and regional native corporations, issues and predictions for the next ten years of ANCSA's implementation. The programs are intended for statewide distribution in Alaska, for the general listening public. The entry for this competition is the first program in the series: the deliberations of delegates to the December 1971 convention of the Alaska Federation of Natives. First heard is the countdown to the President Richard Nixon's call to the convention, announcing that he has just signed the historic bill, a bill that offered greater compensation in exchange for relinquishing aboriginal land claims than any previous settlement in this country -- or any other. Following a narration setting time and place, Eskimo, Indian and Aleut leaders are heard deliberating the land claims settlement, determining whether they should vote to accept its signing into law, whether to recommend Nixon's signature. Original music guides listeners through segments as people voice their reservations about the historic bill, and ultimately vote to recommend an ending of hundreds of years of claiming, not getting a share of Alaska's monetary and land wealth. A bill that promised to usher Alaska's native people into a new era of corporations and paper title to land used since time immemorial, a bill that promised to alter the political and cultural structure and to have ultimate global impacts. The first program prepares the listener for future programs that examine the Act itself and its provisions, the corporations created by the Act, issues and predictions for the next ten years of its implementation."--1981 Peabody Awards entry form.
