History Note
Sam Newlund’s storied career
by Luther Granquist
Throughout his 32-year
career as a reporter for
the Minneapolis Tribune, Sam Newlund, who died last month, wrote
often about people with disabilities. In the Sunday paper for January
10, 1965, he described the life of the men and women at Faribault
State School and Hospital. He told of one of the 104 men in Dakota
Building who rocked “endlessly back and forth on a wooden chair,
staring blankly at the floor” while dozens of barefoot men
and boys milled about. One man was manacled to a bench, while others “with
scarred heads” slumped, “dozing in rows of chairs, their
knees pressed hard against their chests in the position of an unborn
child.” He showed that more staff was needed if these men
and other residents at Faribault were going to be taught to care
for themselves, to be kept clean, to get outside, and to experience “the
healing power of human affection.”
Newlund wrote other
graphic articles about state institution practices. In March 1967,
he exposed pernicious restraint practices at Anoka State Hospital.
In April of that year, he reported that Faribault was much the
same because the institution could not keep staff in the new positions
the legislature authorized in 1965. But Newlund also covered in
depth the legislative and administrative actions which affected
persons with disabilities. Because he combined knowledge of those
issues with an understanding of and respect for persons who have
disabilities, the articles he wrote provide a rich and revealing
history of their lives. ![]()
The History Note is a monthly column sponsored by the
Minnesota Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities,
www.mnddc.org or www.mncdd.org and www.partnersinpolicymaking.com
