Note to the Teacher: Part III should take eight days of class time - three days for introductory lecture/discussion and video, three days for in-class group research, and two days for the final group presentations. If you wish to shorten this section, you could omit the one day video and/or the group project and incorporate the case study information into your lecture/discussion. This could be completed in around five days. Some information for an extended lecture can be found in the Historical Overview section of the web site, as well as in the Chronology.

A. Journal Writing. When students enter the room, have the following journal topics written on the board:

1. Give students five minutes to write. When they are done, begin a brief (no more than ten minutes) discussion.

2. Discussion: What is activism? What are some of the issues that would compel you to become activists? Are there any constitutional guarantees for activism? The First Amendment to the Constitution, in addition to guaranteeing freedom of religion, also guarantees four actions essential to activism - freedom of the press, of speech, petition, and assembly. How and why are these essential to activism? When does activism become illegal?
 
 

B. Introducing the topic. For the next week, we will be discussing modern activism within American Indian communities - activism that began in the 1940s and continues today.
 

1. Discussion: Can any of you think about any examples of Indian activism that have occurred in the last 60 years? Write any answers on the board. If you donât know any examples, or if you only know a very few, why do you think there is such a gap in your knowledge? Indian activism has occurred in many ways, but we rarely are taught about it in our schools. Why do you think the topic has been ignored by our educational system? Indian issues are not part of the white, mainstream agenda, nor are the topics of activism and protest in general.

2. So, we are going to try to fill this gap in our educational knowledge by examining three primary topics:

a. Indian activism that erupted prior to and during the Civil Rights Movement; and
b. the legacy of such activism, which became known as the Red Power Movement; and
c. various case studies of past and present Indian activism.

3. To examine these topics, we are first going to have about two days of lecture and discussion that will provide an overview of Indian activism and the Red Power Movement. Then, the remainder of our time will be spent on group projects whereby each group will examine a specific case study of Indian activism and learn enough to share their findings with the entire class.
 
 

a. The timeline that is being passed around is designed to assist us with this discussion. [HANDOUT - Timeline of 20th Century Indian Activism and Federal Efforts to Enact Self-Determination, 1944 to the Present]

b. Timeline Design. The timeline has been designed so that you can use it for reference and note taking - which you should do on the left-hand side of each page, just as you did with the timeline from last week. Please write your name on it, use it throughout the lesson, and then turn it in at the end of the unit as it will comprise a certain percentage of your final grade.

II. Early Indian Activism
 

A. Indian activism has been a prominent feature of American history since the Europeans first landed in North America. Indians have since been activists as they attempted to keep the white settlers from taking their land and destroying their exercise of cultural, spiritual, political, and economic traditions.
 

1. Most of these efforts were on behalf of individual Indian nations, or small confederations of Indian nations, and, thus, were not national in origin or strength.

2. It was not until the 20th century that Indian activism took place on a national level - activism that sometimes did and often did not capture the attention of mainstream America.

3. It is this more contemporary, 20th Century national activism that we are going to address over the next several days.

Note to the teacher. If you are interested in a brief essay on Indian activism prior to the mid-20th Century, an excellent source is Chapter One, ãPreamble to the Present,ä in Vine Deloria, Jrâs Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999:1-22.)
 

B. During the 1940s and â50s, American Indian activism primarily stressed negotiation, compromise, and a preference for legal remedies.
 

1. Discussion: What are negotiation, compromise, and legal remedies? Are these legal forms of activism? When do activism and protest become illegal?

2. These three legal approaches to activism were primarily directed by the oldest national Indian organization - the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI).
 
 

a. The NCAI, founded in 1944 (see Timeline), restricted its membership to persons of ãIndian ancestryä who were members of any ãIndian tribe, band or community of Indians.ä

b. The men and women who founded NCAI represented tribes from 27 states.

c. According to its constitution, NCAI sought "to enlighten the public toward a better understanding of the Indian race; to preserve Indian cultural values; to seek an equitable adjustment of tribal affairs, to secure and to preserve Indian rights under Indian treaties with the United States; and otherwise to promote the common welfare of the American Indians.ä

d. To that end, it was the NCAI that worked for the creation of the Indian Land Claims Commission, which we discussed last week, and which began to question the federal governmentâs termination policy.

e. During a 1961 meeting of the NCAI, several hundred Indians met in Chicago to discuss how they could influence the incoming administration of President John F. Kennedy. The participants issued a statement that prayed for a new federal policy that would fulfill long standing federal commitments to Indians, but NCAI did not assert any Indian rights or raise the real concerns of Indians on the reservation.
 
 

3. Thus it was that a number of young Indian people who attended the conference became disillusioned with the NCAI and decided to organize a new group - the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC).

a. Its primary goal was to resurrect a sense of national pride among young Indian people.

b. Its message was clearly activist - Indians were no longer to bow their heads in humble obedience to the BIA and other institutions of white society. Instead, they were to look back to their own great cultural traditions and make decisions about their lives based upon such traditions.

c. Within a few years, the NIYC assumed an increasingly militant position, especially through its endorsement of and involvement in a series of ãfish-insä in Washington State - a topic we will learn more about when you begin researching each of the activist case studies.

d. While NIYC was growing, so was a new generation of Indians who were largely young and college-educated, and were proud of their Indian heritage, unwilling to accept white paternalism, and contemptuous of white society. Increasingly, they began appearing at university seminars, joining the NIYC, and attending hearings of federal agencies whose affairs touched Indian life.

e. On February 2, 1967, a young Ponca Indian from eastern Oklahoma who was president of the NIYC testified at a hearing of the Presidentâs National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty. Letâs read a few excerpts from Clyde Warriorâs speech. [OVERHEAD 1 - CLYDE WARRIOR]
 
 

1) Discussion: How does the history of the federal governmentâs involvement with American Indians contribute to the ãpoverty of spiritä that Warrior describes? Do you agree with Warriorâs statement that American Indians were not free in 1967? Explain. Are they more free today? How and why?

2) What is it about the American school system that passes judgment on American Indians and makes them feel as if they are not worthy? If you felt like Clyde Warrior, would you join an activist organization in order to improve your life, as well as the lives of your family?

4. By 1967, Clyde Warrior and other activists had become frustrated with the membership and mindset of the NCAI, whose leadership represented only the federally-recognized tribes reorganized under the 1934 IRA which we discussed last week. These young people favored creating regional organizations of activists, speaking out against the rule in Washington, D.C., and defending the position of traditional Indians across the nation.
 
 

a. Discussion: Who were the traditional Indians? What do you think were their goals in the late 1960s? They demanded a return to basic Indian philosophy, the re-establishment of ancient governmental systems run by open council instead of elected officials, a revival of Indian religions, the replacement of white laws with Indian customs. In other words, they wanted the freedom to choose to return to the ways of the old people, the traditional Indians.

b. Do you think all Indians were traditional? Many Indians on federally-recognized Indian reservations and in urban areas were aligned with the BIA and its federal subsidies. Thus, the Indians of many nations were divided among themselves between those who favored a return to the traditional ways and those who favored continuing under the paternalistic guidance of the BIA. Do you think this division has changed in the past 30 years? Very little. Nations still remain divided based upon the same polar opposites - traditional versus progressive Indians.

5. This interest in activism, this rejection of white privilege, and this search for freedom within communities coincided with the Civil Rights Movement which was erupting across the southern United States. It was into this particular combination of circumstances that several young Indians became activist leaders in a battle for change that known as the Red Power Movement.
 

A. Red Power advocates rejected the activist strategies of their predecessors - negotiation, compromise, and legal remedies - and instead moved into the more militant, radical arena of protest actions.
 

1. The actual words ãRed Powerä were first used in public gatherings by NIYC members in the mid-1960s and eventually were used to describe the events that unfolded in the decade between 1968 with the founding of AIM.

2. The newly-organized Red Power activists sought to achieve at least three primary in the 1960s: [OVERHEAD 2 - RED POWER GOALS]
 

a. self-determination and an end to the entire trustee-ward relationship between the federal government and Indian Nations;
b. federal support for tribal traditions and sovereignty;
c. improved living conditions and justice for all Indian Peoples.

3. Discussion: What is self determination? What are tribal traditions and sovereignty? What is the trustee-ward relationship? This should all be review from last week.

4. The organization that most actively and militantly challenged these issues was AIM.
 
 

B. The American Indian Movement (AIM). In 1968, AIM was created as a regional movement of activists that begin to push for change in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Co-founder Dennis Banks describes the desperation he and the other founding members of AIM felt - a desperation that led them to found AIM. [OVERHEAD 3 - DENNIS BANKS]
 

1. Discussion: Do you agree that no one - including the federal government - listens when people speak ãpolitely abut injustice?ä If this is true, do the American Indians have any other choice than to raise their voices and become more militantly active?

2. AIM members initially sought to address local police brutality against Indians. Thus, AIM supporters walked the streets, stopping police officers from harassing Indians and publicizing any incidents of police violence. Banksâ message was one of desperation, as we have seen in Dennis Bankâs quote.

3. But AIM remained virtually unknown outside of Minneapolis-St. Paul until it became involved with many other Indian activists from across the nation in three distinct patterns of protest: [OVERHEAD 4 - RED POWER PATTERNS OF PROTEST]. Tomorrow we will see how these patterns of Red Power activism developed when we watch the video, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.

Note to the Teacher: This video is approximately 60 minutes. The section on Pine Ridge and contemporary efforts to regain the Black Hills is 35 minutes. Unless you have time to show the entire documentary, these 35 minutes are sufficient. You will need to fast forward the video about 25 minutes until you get the phrase that begins, ãIn the late 1960s, out of the urban ghettos, grew AIM...ä This will be accompanied by a store front photo of AIM. The video is available at many video stores for rent, as well as some community and university libraries, and is also available for $14.95 plus shipping and handling at the PBS web site: www.shop.pbs.org.

A. Discussion.
 

1. Why do you think the federal government saw AIM as a threat? Do you think AIM was really a threat?

2. Who are the ãhang around the fortä Indians? Who are the hostiles? This refers to the federal governmentâs historical ãdivide and conquerä efforts to divide the Indians among themselves. Those who are the ãhang around the fortä Indians support the federal government and the BIA - these were Oglala President Wilsonâs supporters. The hostiles are traditional Indians - the persons who called AIM into the reservation to help them deal with the GOON squad, which they said stood for ãGovernment of the Oglala Nation.ä

3. What did the narrator mean that in the early 1970s, Pine Ridge was the location of a major civil war? Who was fighting whom and why? Why did the FBI become involved in the fight? What were the results of this civil war?

4. If Wounded Knee II was the longest armed conflict in the US since the Civil War, why donât we learn about it in our history textbooks?

II. The Legacy of the Red Power Movement. This is the point where we have to ask an important question - How effective was the Red Power Movement? Do you think it achieved its primary goals of Indian self-determination, the return of tribal traditions and sovereignty, and better living conditions and justice for Indian Peoples?
 

A. In reality, the answer is both yes and no.
 

1. ãYes,ä there has been some achievement in all areas, as we will see this statement from Dennis Banks in which he explains some of the success from AIMâs standpoint. [OVERHEAD 5 - AIM ACHIEVEMENTS] Successes that some attribute to the Red Power Movement include:
 

a. Reversal of the federal termination policy.
b. Adoption of self-determination policies through passage of several statutes - most of which we will discuss today.
c. Renewal of and recommitment to tribal traditions which specifically resulted in the

1) repatriation of many Indian ancestral remains;
2) flourishing of American Indian art and cultural organizations;
3) growth of tribal language programs and tribally-controlled education;
4) reconnection and reaffiliation of many Indian peoples with their traditional communities and identities; and the
5) protection of fishing rights, tribal resources, and tribal lands.

2. But we must also answer ãNoä in terms of absolutes. Changes have come and are continuing to come, but they have been slow. Especially slow has been the federal governmentâs willingness to remove barriers in the way of American Indian Nationsâ full exercise of sovereignty. Changes will continue to evolve throughout the 21st Century as long as Indian activism stays alive and non-Indians continue to have a better understanding of the issues facing Indian Country today.

B. Now, letâs take a look at some of those primary issues in Indian Country - issues which define contemporary Indian activism.
 
 

A. We are going to briefly discuss five issues that have attracted much Indian activism. Then, we will assign each of these issues to groups which will then research a particular case study related to each issue.
 

1. Preservation of tribal sovereignty.
2. Protection of fishing rights.
3. Protection of Indian religious freedom and sacred sites.
4. Repatriation of a Native remains, sacred objects, and cultural property.
5. Objection to demeaning and commercial uses of Native references in sports.

B. Preservation of Tribal Sovereignty
 

Background Information: Under the American Constitution, Indian tribes have sovereign powers separate and independent from the federal and state governments. However, over the past 200 years, each tribe's sovereignty has been based on each tribe's unique relationship with the federal government.  Consequently, contemporary tribal powers of self government are limited at the very least by federal laws and the terms of treaties each tribe has signed with the federal government. In every other respect, the tribes are independent and self-governing communities.

A full understanding of tribal sovereignty is quite complicated because sovereignty varies from tribe to tribe, and because there are more than five hundred federally recognized tribes within the United States. Each tribe has its own form of government,  distinct language, unique culture and history, and unique relationship with the federal government. Nonetheless, there are still certain ideas that can be applied to how sovereignty applies to all tribes.
 

• Only the federal government has the authority to change tribal powers, not the states.
• Tribes keep all rights and powers that they have not expressly given up.

One of the initial experts on federal Indian law, Felix S. Cohen, described what he called the residual sovereignty of Indian tribes:

 
"Perhaps the most basic principles of all all Indian law supported by a host of
decisions...is the principle that those powers which are lawfully vested in an
Indian tribes are not, in general delegated powers granted by express acts of
Congress, but rather inherent powers of a limited sovereignty which has
never been extinguished. Each Indian tribe begins its relationship with the
Federal Government as a sovereign power, recognized as such in treaty and
legislation. The powers of sovereignty have been limited from time to time by
special treaties and laws designed to take from the Indian tribes control of
matters which, in the judgment of Congress, then, must be examined to
determine the limitations of tribal sovereignty rather than to determine its
sources or its positive content. What is not expressly limited remains within
the domain of tribal sovereignty."  (U.S. Department of Interior, 1944)

For Discussion:

1. For Indian nations, the ultimate goal of this current period of federal policy making has been to gain greater governance, or exercise of sovereignty, over tribal affairs. The federal government, however, has been slow to respond to this goal.

2. The sovereignty-related issue that has received the most attention from the non-Indian public has been that of Indian gaming. Gambling, in one form or another, is as ancient in North America as the Indians themselves. However, gambling in Indian Country on a large-scale, money-making basis is relatively new.

a. It was the Seminole Tribe of Florida which initially brought the issue of - and the controversy over - Indian gaming into the public limelight. In 1979, they opened a bingo hall and offered prizes of $10,000, ignoring a Florida state law that prohibited jackpots over $100.

b. It was not long before the first of two federal court cases was filed to challenge Indian gaming. Both cases opened the door for widespread gaming.

1) Florida v. Butterworth (1981). The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that because the State of Florida did not prohibit bingo off Indian reservations, it could not do so on them; and that because the power to regulate commerce with the Indians was specifically related under the Constitution to the federal government, the state could not impose its regulations relating to bingo over the Seminole Tribe.

2) California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians (1987). The Supreme Court ruled that if any given state permitted gambling in any form, it could not prevent similar gambling activities on Indian reservations within the state, nor could it impose its authority over that of a sovereign tribal government by placing controls over such activities.
 

c. In 1988, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). IGRA affirmed the right of tribes to conduct gaming on Indian lands, but made it subject to tribal/state compact negotiations for certain types of gaming - and created the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) - which provides that a tribe requests a state to enter into compact negotiations and that the state must negotiate in "good faith" to enter into a compact.

d. IGRA opened the way for many Indian nations to move into the gaming industry. For example, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe have had spectacular success.
 

1) In 1983, the Mashantucket Pequots won federal recognition as an Indian tribe and began experimenting with a number of ventures for economic development. They began with bingo and continued with high-stakes gambling.

2) They built the Foxwoods Casino within driving distance of Hartford, Boston, Providence, New York City, and other cities in the most heavily populated region of the United States. Since then, it has been described as "the most profitable casino in the world" with a gross yield of between $800 million and $900 million in 1994.

3) Profits provide tribal housing, health care, education, care for the elderly and cultural programs. The Mashantuckets have also built a huge museum that displays Pequot artifacts of history and culture and are involved in archaeological research to recover material evidence of their history.

4) The casino also employs ten thousand workers, a boost to the once-flagging economy of southern Connecticut, and has retired the state's debt.
 

e. Not all Indian nations have had either the success of or the enthusiasm for gaming shown by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe. The Navajos have voted in two tribal referendums not to bring gaming onto their reservation.

f. Discussion: How is tribal gaming directly related to the issue of tribal sovereignty? Over the past three decades, the federal government has been passing policies dealing with self-determination and moving gradually for the restoration of more tribal sovereignty. Deciding whether gambling should be a means of employment on a reservation, then, should be a decision of each and every Indian nation, not the US government.

C. Protection of Fishing Rights.
 

1. In the Nineteenth Century, Indian Nations across North America signed treaties giving away most of their land but retained fishing, hunting, and gathering rights in traditional sites.

2. Until the 1960s, Indians continued to exercise their rights with very little interference from non-Indian fishermen. However, as increasing commercial and sport fishing, as well as the effects of pollution and dams began to devastate the fish, wildlife, and native plants in these regions, Indians found themselves under assault for fishing and hunting out of season or without a license, and for gathering plants on land they no longer owned.

3. At least three specific instances led to heated and violent incidents, each of which ended up in court.

 

a. Fishing Rights in Washington State. During the early 1970s, the US government representing fourteen Indian nations sued Washington State over the issue of fishing rights.

1) Since the mid-1960s, many Indians had staged "fish-ins" to publicize the fact that for almost a decade, Indians had been arrested for fishing out of season and without licenses - despite the fact that they reserved year-round fishing rights in treaties signed in the 1850s.

2) Foremost among those treaties are the Treaty of Neah Bay, 1844 upon which the present-day Washington State Tribes make their claims to whaling and fishing; and the Treaty with the Nisqualli, 1854 upon which the present-day Washington State Tribes make their claims to fishing rights.  Other treaties were negotiated over the next 40 years.  While the treaties are clear that tribes be given access to salmon and other free-swimming fish in the waters controlled by Washington State, their rights to shellfish were limited - "...they shall not take shellfish from any beds staked or cultivated by citizens."

3) In 1974, U.S. District Court Judge George Boldt ruled in PSGA v. Moosthat the treaties guaranteed Indians the right to catch 50% of the  fish in their "usual and accustomed grounds."   Two problems then arose:
 

a) First, many non-Indian fishers resented the ruling and viewed Indian fishers as having special privileges. The state advanced this argument, but the Appeals Court disagreed, as did the Supreme Court in 1979 when it upheld treaty fishing rights and its constitutionality.

b) Second, the Tribes' right to take shellfish was questioned by the Tribes, the State of Washington, the private shellfish harvesters.  This conflict resulted in a series of federal court decisions and ultimately in the 1996 U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, USA v. State of Washington.

c)  The court found that the Tribes' shellfish rights are not limited by species; that the "usual and accustomed grounds" do not vary by species of fish; that the Tribes are entitled to harvest shellfish on privately-owned tidelands.

b. Fishing, Hunting, and Gathering Rights in the Great Lakes Region. In the late 1970s, the Anishinaabe and Ottawa Nations of the Great Lakes regions reasserted their rights to hunt, fish, and gather wild rice - rights that had been guaranteed to them in several Nineteenth Century treaties. (For a description of these treaties and background information on "The Indigenous Peoples of Michigan," click here.)  In United States v. Michigan (1979), both nations won the right to fish commercially and without interference from state regulations. In 1983, after the US Court of Appeals upheld the decision, local fishers committed a series of anti-Indian hate crimes during every spring spearfishing season throughout the remainder of the decade.  (For an up-to-date understanding the fishing rights controversies involving Native Peoples in the Great Lakes Region, click  here.)

c. Fishing Rights in Vermont. After the Abenaki Nation staged a series of "fish-ins" to demonstrate their sovereign right to fish without a license and out of season, in 1979, they sued in a Vermont District Court and subsequently, retained their rights as guaranteed under Nineteenth Century treaties. However, in 1982, the Vermont Supreme Court reversed that decision and ruled that the Abenaki's claim had been terminated by "the increasing weight of history.ä

4. Discussion: Do you think Indian Nations should continue to be allowed hunting and fishing privileges granted to them under treaties, or should they be held to the same laws that govern non-Indians?
 

D. Protection of Indian Religious Freedoms and Sacred Sites.
 

1. Indian sacred sites are lands that hold significant spiritual value for an Indian nation.  These sites may be  discrete geological monuments like Bear Lodge/Devil's Tower in Wyoming  a sixty-million-year-old rock formation, or wide swaths of land.  Other sites may be linked into a tribe's creation myth or are vital to the continuance of a tribe's religion - such as the Lakota's performance of their yearly Sun Dance at Bear Lodge/Devil's Tower.

2.  Different types of sacred sties also face many different types of threats: demolishment, development, public access, control.  All sacred sites controversies  involve the issue of who ha the right to control how these sites are used and who gets to use them.  For a detailed legal discussion of the history of Indian sacred sites protection efforts and the consequences, see "Property Right and Sacred Sites: Federal Regulatory Responses to American Indian Religious Claims on Public Land" by Marcia Yablonn in the April 2004 issue of the Yale Law Review.

3. The earliest effort of the federal government to protect the religious freedoms of Native Peoples generally occurred with passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIFRA) of 1978.In the Act, Congress promised "to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise" their traditional religions, "including but not limited to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites."

4. For the next decade, Indians sought specific enforcement of the Act's policy in the courts, especially through two cases:

 

a. In Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, 1988, the Yurok Indians of Northern California argued that the building of a logging road in the Six Rivers National Forest would bring irreparable damage to their sacred sites. The Supreme Court overturned the lower courtâs injunction against building the road, and allowed for its construction. (The road, however, was never built. For a detailed discussion on the "G-O Road" controversy, see "The G-O Road Controversy: American Indian Religion and Public Land."

b. In Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990,) two members of the Native American Church - an Indian and a non-Indian - had been dismissed from their jobs with the Oregon Department of Education for using peyote in the course of their religious rituals. The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment does not protect practitioners who use peyote in Indian religious ceremonies, and that people who used controlled substances as part of their religious rituals could be prosecuted by states.

5. Largely in response to the Smith decision, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993, which stated that state governments "shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion" except if such exercise of religion conflicts with "a compelling government interest."

4. Congress took another step in 1994 when it passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, which protected the rights of American Indians to use peyote in traditional ceremonies and amended the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act to codify a Drug Enforcement Agency regulation by exempting Indians from prosecution for using peyote for religious purposes.

Note:  For an excellent understanding of this issue, see In the Light of Reverence, as well as access the Public Broadcasting System discussion of the movie.  For a good discussion of this issue, see Carolyn Long's Religious Freedom and Indian Rights, The University of Kansas Press, 2000 -  or the  online review of this book.

 
5. Discussion: Do you think American Indians who traditionally have used peyote in their spiritual ceremonies should be allowed to continue that usage? Why or why not? Why do you think that until 1994, there was so much resistance to changing the law?

D.  Repatriation of a Native remains, sacred objects, and cultural property.

1. The return of religious and cultural property and human remains of Indian people has long been an issue for many Indian Peoples who people believe that:

a. their ancestors' spirits can only be freed by returning their remains to the earth;

b. scientists, tourists, soldiers, and collectors have robbed Indian country for over 100 years of its human remains and material culture;

c. many Indian cultural objects and people are displayed and treated in a deeply offensive manner; and

d. anthropologists and archaeologists have studied Indian human remains in a manner that exploits Indian people and denies their status as human beings.
 

2. Under two previous federal acts - the 1906 Antiquities Act and the 1979 Archaeological Resources Protection Act Amendments - all Indian remains and funerary objects found on federal land became the property of the US government. By 1990, it was variously estimated that about between 600,000 and 2 million Native human remains were held by universities, museums, historical societies, and laboratories across the nation.

3. The Pawnee Nation challenged these holdings in the 1980s, demanding and eventually receiving the return of their ancestral remains from the Nebraska State Historical Society.

4. The Iroquois also demanded and eventually received the return of twelve wampum belts from the New York State Museum.

5. Congress responded to the growing wave of support for repatriation by passing a law in 1989 requiring the Smithsonian Institution to return most of its human remains and funerary objects to Indian nations.

6. In 1990 the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)was enacted requiring all institutions that received federal funds to inventory their collections of Indian human remains, sacred and funerary objects, and cultural property; to share the lists with Indian nations; and to return, when appropriate, the items requested by Indian Nations.

7.  To learn more about two of the most recent NAGPRA-related controversies, see the NOVA special on Kennewick Man or explore that story in more detail by clicking here; and the repatriation of Ishi's brain.

E.  Objection to demeaning and commercial uses of Native references in sports.

1. Today, Indian-related team names and mascots are at the center of an argument that touches the emotional hearts and souls of both those who support and who oppose their usage.

a. Discussion: What is an Indian mascot? According to the Meriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, a mascot is ãa person, animal, or object adopted by a group as a symbolic figure especially to bring them luck.ä When associated with a sports team, a mascot also represents team identity, as well as infuses its fans with feelings of pride and joy.

b. For decades, Indian mascots used by high school, college, and professional teams have rallied team spirit and generated widespread support throughout America.

2. Beginning in the late 1960s, many American Indians actively lobbied college, professional, and high school teams to discontinue the use of Indian mascots, nicknames, and logos.

a. Discussion: Why would Indians object to the use of mascots? They argue that racism permeates the use of stereotypical and derogatory mascots that depict Indians as inferior, foolish, cartoonist, and violent.

b. Indeed, according to one expert, "Indian mascots exhibit either idealized or comical facial features and "native" dress ranging from body-length feathered (usually turkey) headdresses to more subtle fake buckskin attire to skimpy loincloths. Some teams and supporters display counterfeit Indigenous paraphernalia, including tomahawks, feathers, facial paints, symbolic drums and pipes, as well as mock-Indigenous behaviors, such as the 'tomahawk chop,' dances, chants, drum beating, war-whooping and symbolic scalping."  (Cornel Pewewardy, 1999.)

3.  For a more detailed discussion of the history and controversies regarding Indian mascots, see the video, In Whose Honor?;  read "Why Educators Can't Ignore Indian Mascots" by Dr. Cornell Pewewardy; Indian Mascots, Symbols, and Names  in Sports: A Brief History of the Controversy

IV. Summary.
 

A. To summarize our discussions over the past three days, we have learned that:
 

1. Indian activism began with the arrival of the first European settlers on the North American continent, but it did not become well-organized, nationally-based, and militant until the Civil Rights Era.

2. From the mid-1960s fish-ins and the 1968 start of AIM to the Longest March in 1978, the Red Power Movement gained widespread popularity among Indian Peoples.

3. The three primary goals of the Red Power Movement - laws promoting self-determination, the return of traditional tribal sovereignty, and improvement in the standards of living for all Indian people - have been partially met through the actions of the Red Power Movement.

4. Indian activism, then, has been a key factor in the federal governmentâs recent efforts to enact laws designed to promote self-determination, return sovereignty, and improve the lives of American Indians. However, it will take committed, strong, and regular activism to ensure that the US government actually carries these laws out in a manner that meets the needs of Indian people across the US.

5. Some of the most important issues for contemporary Indian activists are as follows: preservation of tribal sovereignty; protection of fishing rights; protection of Indian religious freedom and sacred sites; return of justice to reservation lands; repatriation of a Native remains, sacred objects, and cultural property; objection to demeaning and commercial uses Indian-related names, mascots, and images.

B. Tomorrow we are going to discuss the group assignment on which you will all be working during the last three days of this week.