I took a refreshing pause during fashion week to interview Sacheen Littlefeather (!!) for @voguemagazine. It’s now been nearly 50 years since Littlefeather took the stage at the 1973 Oscars to refuse Marlon Brando’s best actor award. At the time, Brando asked his friend Littlefeather—who is Apache and Yaqui from Arizona—to decline his Oscar in protest of the film industry’s harmful depictions of Native American people. “I was saying, ‘We belong here,’” says Littlefeather now, aged 75, over a Zoom call last week. “‘Why not give us an opportunity to represent ourselves?’ That was foreign back in those days.” The audience didn’t react well: Littlefeather was met with boos, and she has said that actor John Wayne had to be restrained by security guards after attempting to assault her. Since then, she has struggled to find work as an actor, and been personally attacked and harassed. “I got punished for that,” Littlefeather says of her speech. “I’m the person that paid the price of admission for that.” While the Indigenous community rallied around Littlefeather, for years the Academy failed to respond to what happened at the ceremony—that is, until this August, when the group finally issued an official apology to Littlefeather for the backlash she received. This weekend, she will also make her return to Hollywood for a special ceremony in her honor. On Saturday, September 17, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will host a special evening with Littlefeather, including a formal reading of the Academy’s apology letter and “my response to that letter of reconciliation,” Littlefeather says, “coming not just from myself, but on behalf of all Native people—because all Native people were affected by this. It is long overdue for all Native people.” While humble in nature, Littlefeather recognizes today that she’s paved a path for young Indigenous creatives to speak up. “In hindsight, I am very proud of what I did, and how I did it. Not with fists clenched, profanity, or a loud shouting voice—but with the gift of my ancestors.” Full link in bio ❤️