Dee (Alexander) Brown was born on February 28, 1908. He was considered to be the country's foremost historian on His most famous book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1971), has sold more than five million copies. It was the first widely-published book to be written as a sympathetic history of native Americans, thereby awakening many to the systematic destruction of America's indigenous people. Working as a university librarian from 1927 to 1972, Brown retired to concentrate on his writing. The author of 29 books, Wave High the Banner was his first, published in 1942, a biography of Davy Crockett. His novel, Creek Mary's Blood (1980) was highly successful. He said of his Western themes, "We must accept the fact that the Old West was simply a place of magic and wonders. Myths and folktales form the basis of almost every enduring saga in the literature of the American West. They are the comfort and joy of screen and television writers. But let us be wise enough to learn the true history so that we can recognize a myth when we see one." He died on December 12, 2002, at the age of 94, in his Little Rock, Arkansas home.
