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The first time Sacheen Littlefeather encountered the Academy, in 1973, she was booed onstage at the Oscars, heckled with mock ululations and so-called tomahawk chops offstage, and threatened with arrest and physical assault.
Nearly half a century later, she will return to the Academy as an invited guest of honor for an evening of reflection at the Academy Museum, featuring something she never dared to imagine: a formal apology from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
I was stunned. I never thought Id live to see the day I would be hearing this, experiencing this, Littlefeather (Apache/Yaqui/Ariz.), now 75, tells The Hollywood Reporter of receiving the Academys statement, which was first privately presented to her in June. When I was at the podium in 1973, I stood there alone.
Back then, in an instantly historic moment in both Oscars and live television history, a 26-year-old Littlefeather took the stage at Marlon Brandos behest to decline the best actor award (for his role in The Godfather) on his behalf. She had two promises to keep: not to touch the statuette (Brandos instructions), and to keep her comments to 60 seconds (an order from show producer Howard Koch, who told Littlefeather minutes before the award presentation that he had security on hand to arrest her if she went past time).
[Brando] very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award, Littlefeather said in her improvised non-acceptance speech, knowing she would not have time to read from the actors eight typed pages of prepared remarks. And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry [the audience begins to boo] excuse me and on television in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee. (A month before the ceremony, the activist organization American Indian Movement had occupied the South Dakota town of Wounded Knee to protest the sustained mistreatment of Native Americans, a standoff that at the time of Littlefeathers televised appearance at the Oscars was under a U.S. Department of Justice-imposed media blackout.)
Littlefeathers 60-second plea for justice resulted in immediate and enduring personal backlash. She says that in the wings, John Wayne had to be restrained from storming the stage to physically attack her, while in the aftermath, her identity and integrity were impugned (the rumors were so abiding that in 2012, Dennis Miller mocked Elizabeth Warren by calling her as much Indian as that stripper chick Brando sent to pick up his Oscar). Littlefeather, who had acted in a few films before her infamous moment, says that the federal government threatened to shut down any talk shows or productions that put her on the air.
The abuse you endured because of this statement was unwarranted and unjustified, then-Academy president David Rubin wrote in the organizations apology letter, dated June 18. The emotional burden you have lived through and the cost to your own career in our industry are irreparable. For too long the courage you showed has been unacknowledged. For this, we offer both our deepest apologies and our sincere admiration.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/sacheen-littlefeather-oscars-apology-1235198863/

Her original speech from 1973:

https://youtu.be/2QUacU0I4yU