Last week marked the centenary of the birth of screen legend John Wayne on May 26. The occasion reminded me of the fact that the actor’s grave remained unmarked for 20 years –- a fact that helped to inspire a wickedly funny speech by a Native American scholar and activist that might have been titled, “The Red Man’s Revenge on John Wayne.”

When Wayne died in 1979, his family left his grave unmarked, fearing that grave robbers or political leftists would desecrate the site. A headstone was not erected until 1999.

But in 1981, Cherokee author Dr. Rayna Green alluded to Wayne’s unmarked grave in a speech to a group of Native American educators.

The speech, a tongue-in-cheek appeal to create a “Museum of the Plains White Person”, was a tour de force. Dr. Green pulled off what is one of the most difficult feats of public speaking: to sustain a tone of high repartee throughout an entire speech.

In discussing the exhibits that would be featured in the proposed museum, Dr. Green paid particular attention to human remains.

“We have begun our national campaign to acquire the bones of famous white people,” she declared with a straight face, “since they themselves insisted for centuries that we can all learn so much from studying and displaying such remains. And, accepting their notions of reverence for the exhibition of the dead and goods from graves, White People will be honored to have the remains of their grandmothers and grandfathers on display. We have just acquired what I think is quite an important and moving find, the bones of John Wayne, the White Culture Hero, and we plan to acquire the remains of many other famous white persons. You might guess who we have our sights on.”

That is the power of satire. The most cogent and learned argument in favor of leaving the graves of Native Americans undisturbed could not have made the point more effectively than Dr. Green does here.