Klee Benally, a dynamic Navajo activist, artist and punk-rock musician who championed environmental and Native American causes, died Dec. 30 in Phoenix. He was 48 years old.
His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his sister, Jeneda Benally. She did not specify the cause.
For decades, Benally, who lived in Flagstaff, Arizona, fought the expansion of the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort into one of the San Francisco Peaks, a mountain range just north of Flagstaff that 13 tribes consider sacred. He also fought against the resort’s use of treated wastewater to make snow, a practice that Native Americans and environmental groups said was poisoning the ecosystem. He protested against a pumice mine on those same peaks and against the mining and transportation of uranium in the area.
He campaigned for the rights and care of homeless indigenous people and against racial discrimination. She made films and art about his activism.
He was a community organizer and youth counselor; he taught media literacy and film to indigenous teenagers; and marched against the celebration of Thanksgiving Day. Late last year he published a book, “No Spiritual Surrender,” about his efforts to practice what he called indigenous anarchy, and created a board game, “Burn the Fort,” in which Native American warriors fight colonizers. (and learn some history). while he does it).
He chained himself to a bulldozer, was accused of breaking and entering, and joined numerous legal complaints.
But his first foray into activism was through music, in 1989. He was 14 when he and his brothers, Jeneda and Clayson, formed Blackfire, a high-speed punk band that mixed traditional Navajo songs and music with songs from protest about the oppression of indigenous peoples. people.
Benally embraced the punk spirit of giving the middle finger to the world (he loved the Ramones, whose music he introduced him to his mother, a folk singer) and could really shred a guitar. The Ramones also loved Blackfire: CJ Ramone produced the band’s first EP, “Spirit in Action” (1994), and Joey Ramone sang on two of the songs on “One Nation Under” (2002), their first full-length album. duration.
Critics were also in awe. In 2007, David Fricke of Rolling Stone promoted Blackfire’s fourth album, “[Silence] Is a Weapon,” as in “pure anger, hardcore CBGB matinee protest with jolts of ancient chorale.”
The band played South by Southwest and other music festivals, but refused to play bars, at least at first. Benally thought that would be hypocritical, given that alcohol abuse was a problem on the reservations. Furthermore, at the time the Benally brothers were under 21 years old.
“Some people watch too many movies and think John Wayne killed all the Indians or they’re dancing with wolves,” he told The Albuquerque Journal in 2003, explaining Blackfire’s mission to educate the public. “But there are actually more than 500 nations across the United States that maintain their own cultures, their own lifestyles, their own languages and their own ceremonies.”
Klee Jones Benally was born on October 6, 1975 in Black Mesa, Arizona, on the Navajo reservation near Flagstaff. Music and activism were hereditary. Klee’s father, Jones Benally, is a traditional Diné (as the Navajos call themselves) healer; His mother, Berta Benally, is an activist and folk musician of Russian-Polish Jewish descent who grew up in the Greenwich Village folk scene. The couple met in Los Angeles, where she worked with Hopi elders.
Klee and her siblings were raised with their father’s Diné traditions and grew up performing traditional dances. Her mother introduced them to the popular canon; Blackfire would later set some of Woody Guthrie’s poems to music. The area where they lived was part of a land dispute that forced the relocation of thousands of Navajos, and attending protests became a family affair.
In addition to his sister and parents, Mr. Benally is survived by his wife, Princess Benally, and his brother.
Blackfire went on hiatus after two decades, primarily so the Benally brothers could focus more directly on advocacy and activism.
Benally often framed his environmental work in terms of religious freedom. “As indigenous people in the so-called United States, we do not have guarantees for our religious freedoms like the rest of you,” she told The Arizona Republic in 2013. “This is a fight for cultural survival: the fight to protect sacred spaces.” .
Benally was a local hero in Flagstaff, where he founded several community organizations and aid groups. He was angry and pragmatic at the same time; He liked to say that everyone was indigenous to somewhere.
“He was a powerhouse of anti-colonial thought and action, always ready to protect the land.” Dallas Goldtooth, a Native American activist and actor, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Benally explained his worldview in a 2020 interview with Spirituality Health magazine: “As an artist, there is no dichotomy between art and life with our traditional teachings as a Diné people. There is no separation; our life is creation. So our creative expression comes in many different ways. What I look at is: What are the problems facing our communities and what strategies can be most effective? Will it be through a song? Will it be through prayer or action? Or could it be all of them?
