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Filmmaker Telling a Native Tale of Resilience

By Kevin Abourezk

Luis Moro understands the concept of a trail of tears.

Born in Cuba around the time the Communist Party and Fidel Castro were ascending to power, Moro left as a child with his mother for Mexico City and then to the United States.

He came for the promise of better jobs and living conditions.

He came for the American dream.

And he hasn't been disappointed.

Especially last year, when the Los Angeles-based filmmaker won the support of Oscar-winning actor Sir Ben Kingsley to help him produce a film about three Wyandot Nation sisters who fought the government with guns and axes to protect their ancestral burial grounds.

"Whispers Like Thunder" tells the story of Lyda, Ida and Helena Conley, sisters who fought for more than 60 years to protect a Wyandot Nation cemetery in present-day Kansas City, Kansas, where their mother, sister and ancestors were buried.

"These sisters gave their lives to make sure their Indian burial grounds were not sold to a developer," said Moro by phone recently from his Los Angeles home.

Moro, 45, said the project took root after a colleague met the chief of the Wyandot Nation of Kansas, Janet English, who expressed an interest in finding a filmmaker to tell the Conley sisters' story. The colleague referred English to Moro, who was quick to sign on.

After he finished writing the script, Moro set out looking for production support. After his wife became friends with a colleague of Kingsley's, he was introduced to Kingsley and gave the British actor the script for "Whispers Like Thunder."

With Kingsley's support as a producer of the film, Moro is hopeful the movie will find a major distributor and an all-star cast. But he's also hopeful the project's cultural value will not be lost in translation.

"I really wanted to make sure the integrity of the story stayed in place," he said. "To me, (Kingsley) gets it."

The sisters' story begins in the summer of 1907, when they learned Congress had authorized the sale of their ancestral burial grounds to a developer. The sisters quickly moved to protect the cemetery, setting up a 6-foot-by-8-foot shack on the site where they held off U.S. troops, police, construction workers, mob thugs, corrupt businessmen and crooked politicians using guns, axes and their fists.

Simultaneously, the sisters began a decades-long legal battle that would take them to the U.S. Supreme Court to defend their cemetery. They eventually lost their legal battle but won over the hearts and mind of the American people.

"They lost the case but what they won was the public opinion," Moro said. And that helped the sisters eventually succeed in preserving their tribal burial grounds through other means, he said. "They were able to turn it into a national landmark."

Moro sees the Conley sisters' story as empowering to women and Native people. He said Wyandot Nation leaders, like Chief English, support the project, especially now that Kingsley has joined. As well as co-producing the film, Kingsley will play the role of Charles Curtis, the only Native to serve as U.S. vice president.

Moro hopes to finish the movie in time for the 2010 movie award season.

He said he sees hope for Native people in the coming years with the election of Barack Obama and hopes his film can help educate people about the efforts of Native people to fight for their culture and history.

"The Native American community's time has come," he said. "It's time has come."

Kevin Abourezk's "Red Clout" columns are available for syndication. Please contact reznet to purchase republishing rights.

Kevin Abourezk, Rosebud Lakota, is a reporter and editor at the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star. He writes reznet's "Red Clout" political blog and teaches reporting at the Freedom Forum's American Indian Journalism Institute. Abourezk was awarded a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism in 2006.

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