Milton Blake (June 26, 1920 - January 13, 1997) was a newsman for 37 years, with 26 years at ABC Radio and Television News divisions. His career started in 1945 as a rookie reporter with the Oakland Tribune (California), followed by 9 years at the paper’s radio station, KLX. In 1982 he retired as an ABC Television West Coast Bureau News editor, writer, and field producer.

From his boyhood days in Klamath Falls, Oregon, he had a special love for, and kinship with, Native Americans — especially his region’s Cayuse people. Writing a book on the profound injustices that had befallen America’s indigenous tribes was a longtime dream and passion. In a 1989 interview with California’s News Chronicle he said: “…justice hasn’t really been done the California Indians. In the Gold Rush hardly an acre up there wasn’t drenched in Indian blood. These people had lived more than 10,000 years in those valleys and the miners came in and in one season wiped them out.” He added that he was just “...trying to find the right voice” for his book. Ultimately he did so, in the persona of the firebrand American Indian, Yellow Hammer.

The Blake family tree includes Iroquois Oneida Chief Carondowanna and Madame Montour; Chief Sassoonan of the Delaware tribe; Madeleine Couc of the Iroquois Sokokis tribe; and Marie Metiwameghwahkwe of the Algonquin Nation, among other indigenous peoples. On another branch are Isaiah Cooper and his family, who were pioneers of the Oregon Trail — traveling in the original 1843 wagon train known as “The Great Migration” and in subsequent cross-country journeys.

His wife of 52 years was the late Patricia Blake, an Emmy Award-winning children’s television personality (The Princess, Baby Daphne’s Cartoon Castle). Their offspring are Kathleen and Gayle.