It was less of a seminar and more of a reunion during former Mayor Don Barnett’s discussion on the history of Rapid City around the 1972 flood and his memoir “Thorns and Roses” Wednesday night.
The 78-year-old called out to friends in the audience as he recalled memories, asked questions and made sure to shake hands with almost everyone who walked through the Journey Museum’s doors.
Throughout the evening, Barnett made the event less about himself and more about the people around him, whether it was an evening in December 2021 or June 1972.
“I was not a bigger hero than hundreds of people who were working with me,” Barnett said. “Don’t look upon me as the guy that saved Rapid City. Baloney! I didn’t hardly have anything to do with it. It was the National Guardsmen, the firemen, the policemen and the first responders. They literally pulled dozens and dozens of people out of the creek.”
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Barnett was 28 when he was elected mayor in 1971 and 29 when the 1972 flood claimed 238 lives and injured 3,057. Barnett calls each death and challenge during that time a thorn, referencing the quote, “Should we despair because the rose bushes have thorns or should we rejoice because the thorn bushes have roses?”
“Thorns can be prickly and painful and terrible and tear our hearts out, but roses can heal us,” he said. “They make us think about a better tomorrow, enjoy the moment of the day.”
Barnett said the first thorns of the flood were the 114 bodies recovered the morning of June 10, 1972. It was followed by the families reporting missing loved ones that totaled 4,000 in 48 hours.
“That cloud of death hung over Rapid City and the sun wouldn’t shine until about 10 o’clock that morning,” he said. “We hadn’t seen very many roses.”
But the roses began to bloom with the water reclamation facility being repaired, a $10,000 donation to start the Rapid City Disaster Fund, Arndt Dahl giving the city $500,000 to build the Dahl Arts Center, and receiving federal aid.
Barnett said it wasn’t by his leadership that the city was able to recover how it did but rather by the collaboration between him and the 10 council members he worked with, the first responders, city department directors including then-Public Works Director Leanoard “Swanny” Swanson, community members and those who donated across the nation and world in recovery efforts.
Barnett said FEMA wanted to repair the mobile home park that was along Rapid Creek and bring about 1,000 homes in for the survivors.
“It sounded so necessary, so simple, and he was looking for a piece of wisdom and approval from the council that we would go back along the banks of Rapid Creek and put the mobile homes back,” he said. “They got real silent in there. I had not dreamed of this thought and Swanny stood up and put his hands out. He said, ‘No, we should never sentence these survivors to one more night on the suicidal flood plain.’
“Ladies and gentlemen, that was 48 hours after the rain started,” he said. “We had a plan, and it wasn’t Don Barnett’s plan.”
Barnett said the council formed a policy that evening to build away from the creek and turn it into a recreation area.
However, the highlight of Barnett’s career is not the recovery of the flood or establishing what is now The Monument. Before the seminar, Barnett said the American Indian Movement, or AIM, confrontation in February 1973 was the highlight of his political career.
“For me it was more, it was more agonizing in many respects than the flood because there were racially insensitive white people and Native Americans that weren’t going to stand for a b—---t answer,” Barnett said. “They’re going to make sure that you follow through and when you could get them off TV and sit down with these guys, I liked them.”
The Feb. 6, 1973, confrontation at the Custer County Courthouse — where members of AIM held a demonstration-turned-riot in response to charges being filed against Darld Schmitz in the stabbing death of Wesley Charles Bad Heart Bull on Jan. 22 at Buffalo Gap — resulted in three demonstrators and eight officers injured.
Twenty-two people were arrested, the front of the Custer County Courthouse was burned, the Chamber of Commerce office was burned to the ground, a building at a bulk oil station was damaged, two police cars were vandalized, and other vehicles were damaged in a following collision, according to Journal reports at the time.
The following evening, Barnett and the Rapid City Council held a meeting where 150 Native Americans and a half dozen members of AIM discussed racism and discrimination in Rapid City.
During the meeting, Barnett was informed he was a hostage to which he replied, “I think as your mayor I have learned some great lessons. I think the lesson we have learned is the commission has no power,” according to Journal reports. He said he would try to get some power for the Rapid City Racial Conciliation Commission that was formed to help bring the community together.
Barnett said one of the ways he was able to “take venom out of (their) spirits” was by buying cheeseburgers and coffee for AIM leaders and keeping a line of communication open.
“Then little by little, they exhausted their cause and then we improved our racial conciliation process,” he said. “We strove to have a city with more brotherhood and more understanding and less bigotry. I preached that day and night, day and night.”
Barnett will have his last seminar on “Thorns and Roses: Rapid City in the early 1970s” at 7 p.m. Friday at the Journey Museum.