Native American Experience Research Articles

The Western Delaware Indian Nation, 1730–1795: Warriors and Diplomats by Richard S. Grimes

Reviewed by: The Western Delaware Indian Nation, 1730–1795: Warriors and Diplomats by Richard S. Grimes Heather Hatton The Western Delaware Indian Nation, 1730–1795: Warriors and Diplomats. By Richard S. Grimes. ( Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2017. 325 pp. Maps, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $110.) In this compelling and deeply researched account of Delaware migration in the eighteenth century, Richard Grimes examines the formation and decline of nationhood among the western Delaware. Broadly speaking, it reconstructs how the Delaware's search for a new homeland after 1730 stimulated a process of unification among the three phratries, or kinship groups (Turtle, Turkey, and Wolf) of the Delaware. Departing from the established trajectory of the Delaware as a conquered people—victims of Iroquois aggression and European territorial expansion—the book provides a new approach to how the Delaware confronted the changing geopolitical landscape of eighteenth-century America. Grimes argues that ethnic unification allowed the Delaware to pursue new opportunities and meet the challenges of the trans-Allegheny West. Although unification was stimulated by migration, the western Delaware actively engaged in a process of sociopolitical reconstruction to create a distinct national identity and assert their diplomatic and military power. They changed from a matrilocal to a patrilocal society, embraced a masculine-centered culture, and created a national council to give themselves diplomatic traction with European colonial governments. However, the new political order of the Delaware was short-lived. Grimes argues that measures intended to establish greater cohesion among the Delaware had the opposite effect, ultimately pulling the western Delaware apart during the American Revolution. The Great Council did not possess "the maturity or experience as a body to withstand conflict and internal factionalism" created by this war (225). After the revolution, continued land loss and forced migration—circumstances that previously created unification—served to further destabilize the nation. Political schisms and the lack of a homeland to stabilize the nation caused the western Delaware nation to disintegrate in the nineteenth century. Drawing on an impressive range of multidisciplinary evidence, including oral traditions of the Delaware, observations of Moravian missionaries and colonial officials and contemporary anthropological studies, The Western Delaware Nation departs from existing scholarship by highlighting the Delaware's proactive response to European invasion. Carrying the story into the nineteenth century, [End Page 103] Grimes concludes that the fate of the western Delaware was ultimately "typical of the Native American experience … a story of futile adaptations in the face of overwhelming odds" (281). While Grimes is correct in his conclusions that the western Delaware nation never achieved lasting political cohesion, the book misses an opportunity to complicate the narrative of inevitable declension by extending its earlier observations regarding Delaware adaptability to the wider chronology. Focusing on how different groups of geographically displaced Delaware reordered and reconstituted their worlds in the nineteenth century would perhaps have been a more suitable conclusion to a book which predominately promotes the idea of indigenous agency. Notwithstanding, this well-written and painstakingly researched study is a welcome addition to the literature of a period in which scholars often overlook certain indigenous groups at the expense of narrating Iroquois dominance. Offering a detailed account of Delaware migration and thoroughly considering the processes involved in the construction of western Delaware nationhood, this book makes a significant contribution to the field of early American history. Heather Hatton University of Hull Copyright © 2019 Clearance Center, Inc.

What's in a Name?

What's in a Name? Margaret Ellen Newell (bio) William S. Kiser. Borderlands of Slavery: The Struggle over Captivity and Peonage in the American Southwest. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. 266 pp. Figures, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $45.00. Andrés Reséndez. The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016. 448 pp. Figures, maps, appendices, notes, index. $30.00. At a recent roundtable on Indian slavery at the Myaamia Center at Miami University, borderlands historian Andrew Offenburger posed two great questions: Is slavery the appropriate "container" for the variety of labor arrangements and captivities that indigenous people experienced? And why are scholars of Native American history suddenly using the term? Certainly, Indian slavery is having a moment. A slew of award-winning works have discussed Indian slavery's scale and effects across the western hemisphere. But is slavery too blunt an instrument for analyzing the Native American experience? An institution that has existed in many eras and places, slavery would seem a capacious container. Still, in the Americas slavery remains closely associated with European colonization, with victims of African descent, with plantations, and with the racialized, heritable, chattel form that emerged between 1650 and 1750. This definition would appear to leave little room for pre- and post-contact indigenous practices, the non-economic aspects of captivity, and the nuances of peonage. Another nomenclature controversy involves the use of terms like "human trafficking" in talking about the past. This issue has popped up at panels on slavery and has invited passionate "yeas" as well as naysayers who fear teleology. In Brazil, Sudan, Thailand, Syria, and the United States, to name a few, women and children are trafficked for sex, unpaid workers are held against their will, and regimes justify the enslavement of ethnic and religious minorities. Does establishing a link with the present help or hinder our understanding of the unique historical circumstances that produced eighteenth-and nineteenth-century slavery? Should our stories of slavery end with the Thirteenth Amendment? [End Page 24] These two books speak to the question of what to call unfree Indians and why names matter. In The Other Slavery, Andrés Reséndez offers an emphatic "yes" to the question of whether slavery is the appropriate analytical tool for understanding colonization and the indigenous experience in Latin America and the U.S. borderlands. William S. Kiser offers a more ambiguous answer in Borderlands of Slavery, in which he explores efforts to end Indian bondage in New Mexico in the Civil War era, a fight that turned on whether captivity and peonage really constituted slavery. A finalist for the National Book Award and a Bancroft Prize-winner, The Other Slavery is a tour de force. Reséndez combines synthesis and original research seamlessly, and since he draws material from Latin American and borderlands histories unfamiliar to many U.S. historians, it feels fresh. The scope is breathtaking, ranging over four centuries and covering the Spanish empire (including the Philippines and the Caribbean), independent Mexico, and the southwestern United States. At the same time, individual stories and often searing first-hand testimony give emotional heft to this persuasive account. Not afraid to name names when it comes to slavery, Reséndez surveys an array of coerced labor regimes: the Mit'a, encomienda, repartimiento, and similar forced labor requirements; debt peonage; ransomed captives forced to labor to repay their benefactors; convicts and rebels sentenced to servitude; indentured servants; orphans and paupers bound to service; and ostensibly free wage laborers whose employers never paid them are all gathered under the same umbrella. The Other Slavery puts Indian slavery into dialogue with Atlantic African slavery, not to argue that they were the same but rather to convey significance and horror. Upping numbers first proposed by Brett Rush-forth, Reséndez estimates that between 2.5 and 5 million Indians experienced enslavement. The numbers suggest that a higher proportion of Indians faced enslavement than did Africans, and The Other Slavery challenges common understandings of the Americas' demographic catastrophe. Slavery and slaving, not merely epidemic disease, bore significant blame. Traders kidnapped entire populations of some Caribbean Islands and stole able-bodied adults, especially women...

Native Elder and Youth Perspectives on Mental Well-Being, the Value of the Horse, and Navigating Two Worlds

Purpose: Native American youth experience significant challenges to mental well-being. As part of a larger study to evaluate hope and resilience in a Plains tribal population, the purpose of this study was to learn from Native American elders and youths what they feel is needed to for youth to grow up healthy on the reservation, and to identify connections between horse use and mental well-being. Sample: Six Native American elders and eight Native American youths from the same Plains tribe. Method: The research team conducted Talking Circles with youths and elders. During the Talking Circles, participants identified community-specific questions for inclusion in a resilience measurement and provided personal stories regarding the relevance of the horse to well-being. Findings: Both groups felt cultural traditions and language, education, relationships, and interactions with horses have significant roles in enhancing identity development and resilience in youth. However, elders indicated that tribal youth seem to struggle in navigating two worlds. Elders expressed that for youth to be well, they need to return to traditional ways within the realms of culture, language, education, and relationships. On the other hand, the youths were more confident in their ability to navigate two worlds, and wished to seek opportunities to blend their traditional and contemporary lives. Conclusion: The challenges of navigating two worlds for Native Americans are experienced across generations. Both youths and elders said that resilient youth are able to successfully navigate these challenges when they: (a) know their indigenous identity, (b) participate in cultural activities, (c) have strong family ties, and (d) are able to learn in an environment where their culture is championed. We propose that future efforts must include community-based participatory methods in the development of interventions that include use of the horse to strengthen Native American youth resilience and foster health and well-being. Keywords: American Indian health, resilience, identity, mental well-being, horses DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14574/ojrnhc.v18i2.542

Let Them Be Heard: Bringing Native American Experience Closer in Teaching

Abstract Teaching about Native Americans, especially as a non-Native person, involves a number of complications. The experience and histories of Indigenous peoples have often been presented from the point of view of the Euroamerican hegemonic power and complicated by a long pattern of colonization, including education. As a result, Native peoples themselves as well as outsiders have been mostly exposed to the dominant culture’s perspectives of Native Americans, often being stereotyped and reductive. The aim of the present paper is to examine the theoretical frameworks advanced by American Indian scholars and educators who demonstrate the methods which expose colonization and show the fundamental Native concepts needed to be involved in the pedagogies concerning Indigenous people. The primary consideration is to be guided by Native peoples' own concepts in trying to avoid perpetuating the colonizing pattern. Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy (a Lumbee scholar and educator) advanced the Tribal Critical Race Theory, which offers a comprehensive framework which can provide useful guidelines for teaching about Native Americans. The paper also offers suggestions for implementing this framework in the classroom such as using contemporary Native American autobiographical writing, involving the concept of performance or digital resources like those developed by Craig Howe, an Oglala Sioux, and the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies. Exposing students to Native people through Indigenous people's own stories and resources may be helpful in presenting them as real people. Such an approach may help students to be able to hear and access Native peoples’ own voices sharing their lives, which can contribute to bringing their experience closer to students.

45.3 Native American Experiences

45.3 Native American Experiences

Representing indigenous lifeways and beliefs in U.S.-Mexico border indigenous activist discourse

AbstractDespite challenges for U.S.-Mexico border Indigenous activists in their efforts to counter dominant discourses about both border policy and Native rights, Indigenous activists assert their rights as they advocate for public policies and actions that affirm and protect these rights. This article explores some of the discursive strategies used by Indigenous activists to index Indigenous identities and lifeways and to counter mainstream conceptualizations of Native identity and Indigenous rights on the U.S.-Mexico border. Through such semiotic strategies, Indigenous border activists create indigenized and legitimized political spaces for the assertion of their beliefs. Indigenous border activists achieve this through metasemiotic constructs that draw from stereotypes about Native people and their use of language as well as through the active mobilization of schemas for conceptualizing both Native American experiences and the U.S.-Mexico border.

Our Fires Still Burn: The Native American Experience

Our Fires Still Burn: The Native American Experience

“Look It, This is how You Know:” Family Forest Walks as a Context for Knowledge-Building About the Natural World

ABSTRACTThis case study focuses on a Native American family's experience on a walk in an urban forest preserve. Drawing on interaction analysis traditions, we analyze video data and transcript data to characterize how learning unfolds in place, in this case an urban forest. We build on this analysis, as well as the work of Indigenous scholars, to theoretically develop walking, reading, and storying land as a methodology for making sense of physical and biological worlds.

Modernity, World War I, and Appropriations of the Colonial Gaze in John Joseph Mathews’ Sundown

Approximately 12,000 American Indians served in the armed forces of the United States during World War I, yet very few of them turned their experiences into memoirs, fictions, or poetry. A notable exception is John Joseph Mathews, whose acclaimed 1934 novel, Sundown, provides rare glimpses into the multifaceted and conflicted Great War experiences of Native Americans in general and a young Osage aviator in particular. Written during the early 1930s, as the Bonus March briefly revived America’s cultural memory of the First World War, Sundown defies long-held stereotypes about Native Americans and explodes the myth of the ‘Vanishing Indian.’ Before the backdrop of the encroachment of white settlers and ruthless speculators on the oil-rich Osage reservation, Sundown depicts its protagonist’s attempts to navigate a modern world that is marked by radical technological developments and social shifts.

Our Fires Still Burn: The Native American Experience dir. by Audrey Geyer

Our Fires Still Burn: The Native American Experience dir. by Audrey Geyer

The Voting Rights Act's Pre-Clearance Provisions: The Experience of Native Americans in South Dakota

During the 1965 debates over the Voting Rights Act, there are only two brief mentions of Native Americans. During the Act's 1975 renewal, Native Americans were mentioned only with respect to their inclusion under the minority language provisions. At no point did the applicability of Section 5's pre-clearance provisions to political jurisdictions with histories of discrimination against Native Americans generate discussion. They also were ignored in the Supreme Court's 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, where Section 4(b) that established the criteria for establishing Section 5 covered jurisdictions was found to be unconstitutional. In this paper, we examine struggles over Section 5 pre-clearance in South Dakota, as well as the challenges of legal attempts to establish “covered jurisdictions” using the more stringent standard required in Section 2. We focus on South Dakota because it is a state with a long, troubled history of discrimination towards Native peoples. It also is the state with the highest number of voting rights cases involving Native Americans. Although a state that has been labeled “the Mississippi of the North” is an extreme case, we argue that it is precisely those settings that make pre-clearance so critical.

Pedagogy of Absence, Conflict, and Emergence: Contributions to the Decolonization of Education from the Native American, Afro-Portuguese, and Romani Experiences

This article employs the pedagogy of absence, conflict, and emergence (PACE), as an analytical approach to study concrete contributions to the decolonization of education. PACE seeks to transcend Eurocentric knowledge construction, and hence one of its fundamental efforts is to think from and for places, experiences, temporalities, and life projects otherwise rendered absent or negated in dominant education. The nonformal education projects studied are SNAG magazine in the Native American community of San Francisco, California (United States); efforts to “standardize” education among Romani communities in Córdoba, Spain; and hip-hop culture in Lisbon, Portugal. By challenging received practices of education and contributing to thinking of diversity from frameworks unconfined to dominant Eurocentric understandings, the case studies provide important insights to the multifaceted process of decolonization. The article concludes that PACE’s implications for educational research involve the methodological recentralization of the realities ignored by Eurocentric colonial education.

Israel, Palestine, and the Language of Genocide

Israel, Palestine, and the Language of Genocide

Gi-gikinomaage-min (we are all teachers): using history to give voice to urban native American communities

This article explores one developing model for framing ethical, mutually beneficial collaborations between a predominantly White, non-tribal serving university and urban Native American communities. Called Gi-gikinomaage-min (We are all teachers): Defend our History, Unlock Your Spirit, this oral history documentation initiative is informed by the developing literature on best practices for archiving Native American resources as well as by revolutionary critical pedagogy. Focusing on the impact of federal Urban Relocation Programs, the project is the first collaborative effort to focus on documenting experiences of Native Americans in the Grand Rapids, Michigan metropolitan area to create a publicly accessible archive of material that can be used for teaching, research, and other educational purposes. By reflecting on the work of this project to date, we aim for these efforts to become part of the larger, international conversation.

On Fire

This essay is my account of the early stages of the creation of the 2014 drawing and video installation titled On Fire. Using a detailed and unmediated first-person point of view, I attempt to humanize a tragic event that the viewer often fails to identify with and process fully when the event is categorized as a Native American experience. The issue of climate change is a human issue that all cultures face. I ask readers to immerse themselves in the landscape and consider the unique relationship my people have always had with the natural world.

On Practicing an Independent African American Cinema: An Interview with Kevin Willmott

On Practicing an Independent African American Cinema: An Interview with Kevin Willmott De Witt Douglas Kilgore (bio) During the past two decades Kevin Willmott has occupied a unique place in independent filmmaking, as an African American writer and director. His work is guided by the idea that cinema can inform as well as entertain, illuminating our world in ways that are both unexpected and pleasurable. He believes that filmmaking can do good by allowing us to remember what we may have forgotten, changing how we see the world, and making it a better place in which to live. As a maker of independent feature films Willmott’s approach is to use familiar film genres such as the western, comedy, science fiction, and the sports film to tell stories driven by the perspectives and experiences of African and Native Americans. Thus he has created a body of work that establishes a space in which American visual culture is diverted from its persistent emphasis on celebrating the political and social investments of deracinated white men. Films such as The Battle for Bunker Hill (2008), The Only Good Indian (2009), Destination Planet Negro (2013), and his best-known work, C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004), demonstrate both his range and his commitment to reclaiming American history through the actions and voices of its minority actors using the traditional storytelling strategies of mainstream cinema. This interview took place following the 2013 retrospective “An African American Independent: The Films of Kevin Willmott,” presented by the Black Film Center/Archive and the Indiana University Cinema. In it, the film-maker discusses the nature of his work and why it emerges from locations and commitments largely foreign to Hollywood. Removing himself from the film industry’s institutional constraints has freed him to nurture an alternative supported by his residence in Kansas as a film professor and his history as a native of the state. As a result, his films may be seen as the cinematic equivalent of a regional theater, using local artistic and technical resources [End Page 95] to create stories that reflect perspectives and experiences immediate to the people of his state. Willmott sees his regional aesthetic as part of an active conversation about race and history with his colleagues. This exchange prioritizes the challenge of creating feature films that can attract audiences poorly served by more orthodox motion pictures. An additional challenge, Willmott notes, is both seeking and creating those audiences. That has meant making movies that mount serious engagements with the pattern and texture of black lives within the conventions that mainstream filmmaking have made both familiar and pleasurable. It is a strategy that leverages the popular forms American filmgoers share and makes them fit containers for the actualities of American political and social life. The experiences recalled and the lessons learned are thereby made attractive and, possibly, more effective than the straightforward social problem or message film. Thus Willmott’s broader ambition is to make the conversations about race that are a part of his production process an entertaining element of what an audience will enjoy. Since this interview was conducted, Willmott has released Jayhawkers (2013), a sports drama focused on the University of Kansas men’s basketball team in the civil rights era, and Chi-raq (2015), a Chicago-based comedy, co-written with Spike Lee, that uses Aristophanes’s Lysistrata to mount an incisive critique of American gun violence. De Witt Douglas Kilgore: Most of your films use Kansas, its physical and visual presence and its history, as a place worthy of interest. Could you tell us about why you decided that Los Angeles or New York wasn’t the best venue for your work? Kevin Willmott: For me it was a question of productivity. I think that a large part of the decision to go the path I chose was based on my vision; whether my idea of things would ever become real in motion pictures. It didn’t seem to me like it would, and you know one thing I really kind of believe in a lot is that you have to at some point in your life figure out: “OK, so if I’m...

Violence and Residual Associations Among Native Americans Living on Tribal Lands

The treatment of Native American populations has not been a traditional area of focus among mental health researchers (Matamonasa-Bennett, 2013). However, a push for increased knowledge in the effective treatment of this population has led to an influx of empirical attention in the past few decades. The National Congress of American Indians declared violence against Native Americans, particularly those living on tribal lands, as the most critical issue faced by Native Americans (Matamonasa-Bennett, 2013). Complicating the interpretations of the subsequent studies, Evans-Campbell (2008) concluded significant differences between Native Americans living on tribal lands and Native Americans living in urban areas. It is critical that counselors be cognizant of such within-group differences (Brown-Rice, 2013). Research efforts related to Native American populations living in tribal communities have predominately focused on exposure to violence. In order to bridge the gap in understanding how violence impacts Native Americans, the current review addresses the prevalence, predictive characteristics and residual associations related to violence among Native American men and women living on tribal lands. Moreover, the barriers to addressing mental health treatment among this population are discussed. Implications for counselors and directions for research are provided.Violence and Mental Health Issues for Native AmericansViolence can consist of physical, sexual and emotional assault (Watts & Zimmerman 2002). Many acts of violence can be characterized as a combination of these categories, such as a sexual assault that also produces physical harm to the survivor. Physical violence can include assault, neglect of basic needs (which is most common among children), exploitation of labor and false imprisonment. Sexual violence includes rape, fondling, genital mutilation and sex trafficking (Watts & Zimmerman, 2002). Emotional violence includes isolation, verbal abuse, economic abuse, coercion, threats and intimidation (Pence & Paymar, 1993). Because violence is often conceptualized as a means to gaining or maintaining power and control over others, a survivor of violence is often victimized by those closest to him or her, such as a family member or friend (Watts & Zimmerman, 2002).Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been associated with exposure to physically, sexually and emotionally violent experiences (Ford, Grasso, Elhai, & Courtois, 2015). Traumatic stress symptoms are often more complicated to treat in circumstances when an individual has been exposed to prolonged or repeated violence. Furthermore, these symptoms are more likely to develop when survivors of violence feel a sense of betrayal from the perpetrator, which is often reported by those who experience sexual assault and domestic abuse (Ford et al., 2015). Researchers have concluded that these issues are more prevalent among Native Americans living on tribal lands (Malcoe, Duran, & Montgomery, 2004; Yuan, Koss, Polacca, & Goldman, 2006), which may suggest a higher likelihood for the development of PTSD when compared to other populations.Although PTSD is the mental health disorder most often associated with individuals who experience violence, depression (Cascardi, O'Leary, & Schlee, 1999) and anxiety (Pico-Alfonso et al., 2006) symptoms have been highly correlated to violence exposure. Clearly, those who survive violence are at high risk of developing mental health symptoms and can benefit from professional intervention. However, the experiences of Native Americans related to violence are not likely to be completely congruent to other populations (Sue & Sue, 2012). For this reason, it is crucial for counselors to gain increased competency in the unique factors impacting the Native American community in order to provide effective care.Violence Against Native American WomenUnited States legislators acknowledged in the 2005 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that Native American women living on tribal lands were a particularly marginalized population (Crossland, Palmer, & Brooks, 2013). …

In a Sacred Manner We Died: Native American Near-Death Experiences

Article presenting 11 historical Native American near-death experiences from the 1600s to the early 20th century as they appeared in the accounts of early explorers, autobiographical records, and ethnographic accounts.

On Practicing an Independent African American Cinema: An Interview with Kevin Willmott

On Practicing an Independent African American Cinema: An Interview with Kevin Willmott De Witt Douglas Kilgore (bio) During the past two decades Kevin Willmott has occupied a unique place in independent filmmaking, as an African American writer and director. His work is guided by the idea that cinema can inform as well as entertain, illuminating our world in ways that are both unexpected and pleasurable. He believes that filmmaking can do good by allowing us to remember what we may have forgotten, changing how we see the world, and making it a better place in which to live. As a maker of independent feature films Willmott’s approach is to use familiar film genres such as the western, comedy, science fiction, and the sports film to tell stories driven by the perspectives and experiences of African and Native Americans. Thus he has created a body of work that establishes a space in which American visual culture is diverted from its persistent emphasis on celebrating the political and social investments of deracinated white men. Films such as The Battle for Bunker Hill (2008), The Only Good Indian (2009), Destination Planet Negro (2013), and his best-known work, C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004), demonstrate both his range and his commitment to reclaiming American history through the actions and voices of its minority actors using the traditional storytelling strategies of mainstream cinema. This interview took place following the 2013 retrospective “An African American Independent: The Films of Kevin Willmott,” presented by the Black Film Center/Archive and the Indiana University Cinema. In it, the film-maker discusses the nature of his work and why it emerges from locations and commitments largely foreign to Hollywood. Removing himself from the film industry’s institutional constraints has freed him to nurture an alternative supported by his residence in Kansas as a film professor and his history as a native of the state. As a result, his films may be seen as the cinematic equivalent of a regional theater, using local artistic and technical resources [End Page 95] to create stories that reflect perspectives and experiences immediate to the people of his state. Willmott sees his regional aesthetic as part of an active conversation about race and history with his colleagues. This exchange prioritizes the challenge of creating feature films that can attract audiences poorly served by more orthodox motion pictures. An additional challenge, Willmott notes, is both seeking and creating those audiences. That has meant making movies that mount serious engagements with the pattern and texture of black lives within the conventions that mainstream filmmaking have made both familiar and pleasurable. It is a strategy that leverages the popular forms American filmgoers share and makes them fit containers for the actualities of American political and social life. The experiences recalled and the lessons learned are thereby made attractive and, possibly, more effective than the straightforward social problem or message film. Thus Willmott’s broader ambition is to make the conversations about race that are a part of his production process an entertaining element of what an audience will enjoy. Since this interview was conducted, Willmott has released Jayhawkers (2013), a sports drama focused on the University of Kansas men’s basketball team in the civil rights era, and Chi-raq (2015), a Chicago-based comedy, co-written with Spike Lee, that uses Aristophanes’s Lysistrata to mount an incisive critique of American gun violence. De Witt Douglas Kilgore: Most of your films use Kansas, its physical and visual presence and its history, as a place worthy of interest. Could you tell us about why you decided that Los Angeles or New York wasn’t the best venue for your work? Kevin Willmott: For me it was a question of productivity. I think that a large part of the decision to go the path I chose was based on my vision; whether my idea of things would ever become real in motion pictures. It didn’t seem to me like it would, and you know one thing I really kind of believe in a lot is that you have to at some point in your life figure out: “OK, so if I’m...

Reshaping Southern Identity and Politics: Indian Activism during the Civil Rights Era

Reshaping Southern Identity and PoliticsIndian Activism during the Civil Rights Era Denise E. Bates (bio) When asked to summon a set of images from the civil rights era in the South most scholars and students of history invoke such iconic images as lunch counter sit-ins or impassioned speeches delivered by a leader like Martin Luther King Jr., who dominated headlines with his antisegregation campaign. Still others may point to the multiple cases of violence inflicted upon civil rights workers by a group such as the Ku Klux Klan, which regularly made national news. Whatever comes to mind—whether it involves brave young activists, articulate leaders, or race-based violence—these images clearly portray a period that provokes strong emotions tied to the movement for equal rights for black southerners in the face of a long and stable system of white supremacy. This narrative, however, is incomplete. Although the black civil rights movement did indeed capture national attention and spur a revolution in race relations, it was not the only movement that contributed to the reshaping of southern identity and politics during the civil rights era. Things are not that simple. In fact, where civil rights era scholars are generally falling short is in the consideration and incorporation of the political activities and economic development efforts of southern Indians who, in addition to having to navigate a system of racial segregation in a region where they were often overlooked, went on to launch a distinct movement of their own—one that also proved critical to the South’s shifting political and social terrain during the second half of the twentieth century. Beginning with localized efforts in the 1950s and gaining momentum by the 1970s, charismatic Indian activists across the Southeast leveraged the politically precarious positions of southern politicians as they [End Page 125] came under intense scrutiny and were looking for opportunities to improve their images. This opened the door within many southern states for historically significant relationships to be developed between Indian groups and state governments. At the same time, the national Indian political environment was also undergoing dramatic shifts, serving as a prominent catalyst in further shaping the direction of the movement. As a result, southern Indian leaders and activists became heavily involved in intertribal coalitions and alliances, previously unorganized groups developed tribal governments, tribes embarked on new economic ventures, and petitions for federal recognition were submitted by the dozens by groups hailing from the South.1 The southern Indian movement, like the black civil rights movement, was complex and dynamic. The diversity of the South’s Indian populations, which are identified by such characteristics as their locale and political status, dictated the roles that different groups played within the larger movement. The strategies and messages between Indian leaders who served as activists in promoting change also varied, generating some lively debates and offering some great insight into the ideological distinctions present within the movement. While a drive for tribal self-determination framed Indian activism on a national scale, distinguishing it from the mainstream activities of civil rights activists, Indian leaders were influenced by a variety of intellectual traditions.2 There is a great deal of scholarship on the South’s Indian population following World War II that focuses on revitalizing efforts, identity issues, recognition, and tribal development, serving as a strong basis for reimagining the dominant civil rights narrative.3 The diversity of the South makes it impossible to generalize the experiences of southern Native Americans, which is evident in the tendency of the scholarship to focus on specific groups or states. There is a need, however, for a more aggressive assessment of southern racial discourse and how it intersects with the political activities of Indians—much in the manner that the scholarship on black civil rights activism does.4 These narratives are two pieces of a whole that can provide a better understanding of the larger political and economic shifts that characterize the post–World War II South. So how do we unpack such a complex story? The goal of this essay is to contribute to an ongoing conversation that scholars have been engaging in for decades about the broader role of Indian activism during...