Indian Returns Mencken Award

The Sioux publisher of the weekly Lakota Times said Friday that he has returned the H. L. Mencken Writing Award he won in 1985 because of racist and sexist remarks Mencken made in his recently published diaries.

“I feel very strongly that everything that I have fought for in the last 20 years to try and improve race relations . . . just wouldn’t wash if I accepted an award and kept an award from a person that has attitudes that are so bigoted,” said Tim Giago, a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe.

“I have a strong feeling that this kind of subtle racism, by people that are in a position to help, is probably the worst form of racism,” he said. His paper is named for the dominant Sioux language.

Giago writes a weekly syndicated column on Indian issues for 20 newspapers across the country. He said he doubted that others who attended the ceremony with him four years ago would have taken part if they had known about Mencken’s attitudes.

Mencken, the famous columnist for the Baltimore Sun, wrote his diaries between 1930 and 1948. He died in 1956.