FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 10, 2000 CONTACT: Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119 DECADES OF RESEARCH CULMINATE IN NEW BOOK ABOUT THE WOUNDED KNEE MASSACRE William S. E. Coleman, professor of theatre arts at Drake University, will discuss and sign copies of his new book, "Voices of Wounded Knee," at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 13, at Borders Books & Music Cafe, 4100 University Ave., West Des Moines. Professor Coleman and his wife, Linda Robbins Coleman, spent nearly 30 years gathering documents about the Wounded Knee Massacre from collections in the United States and abroad to create the book, which was published recently by the University of Nebraska Press. The project dates back to in 1971, when William Coleman was traveling in South Dakota in search of information about Buffalo Bill Cody. He had a chance meeting with Benjamin Black Elk, who told him about his father, Black Elk, who had toured Europe with Cody in 1889-90 and witnessed the massacre at Wounded Knee on Dec. 29, 1890. That encounter set Coleman on the trail of firsthand accounts of the events that led up to the massacre and the massacre itself. He found letters and testimony that had never been published or critically examined. He ended up bringing together all of the available sources - Lakota, military and civilian. "While much has been written about Wounded Knee and what happened there, this is the first account in which the participants have been allowed to tell the story almost entirely in their own words," according to a review in Library Journal. Coleman reconstructed the massacre moment by moment, placing contradictory accounts in direct juxtaposition, allowing the reader to decide who was telling the truth. When asked what conclusions he has reached, Coleman said, "I do think that I've proved that it should not be called a battle; it was a massacre." His balanced treatment suggests that the massacre grew out of decades of broken treaties, cultural misunderstandings, power struggles between the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Army, and erroneous and inflammatory reports by irresponsible members of the press. The book has been well-received by other authors and historians. "This book's high value is in its completeness," said Dee Brown, author of "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." Troy Johnson, co-editor of "Red Power: The American Indians' Fight for Freedom," said, "The material is exactly what is called for - a chance for the Indians to speak about their past and the events that surrounded Wounded Knee. This is an important book."