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                   KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Delivered by Ben Dwight, Choctaw, before the National Convention of American Indians held in Denver, Colorado, November 15 - 18, 1944. 

My fellow Americans, this is one assignment for which I feel deeply honored. In my humble way I hope to be able to carry out in a way that will be a credit to what I know to be in the hearts and in the minds of you people here today. I wish I could rise to the occasion and talk to you as I really would like to talk to you. I wish it were possible for me to express myself in a way that would be a credit to the purpose for which you people have been called here. [[underlined]] I never saw a gathering together before where the keynote of the occasion was delivered by the audience itself. [[/underlined]] Where every participant in the meeting had an opportunity to say in advance of the deliberations what was on their minds and to lay out a program for the meeting itself. That idea presupposes the purpose for which you were called and the circumstances for which you have gathered here. In other words, this is your meeting - a meeting of the Indian people of the United States that come together to express themselves, to formulate a program, and to take such actions as the hearts and minds of the Indian citizenship of the United States demand. 

Now there has been some misgiving about how this convention came into being. I. myself, at one time a few months ago labored under the impression that perhaps this organization might not have been well initiated. Perhaps there might be some reason why a group of Indian Service employees had started upon the long path and in the wrong way. Frankly I labored under that impression for awhile, then I began to explore into it. I began to explore the possibilities and I found that a group of young Indians who had earned their way up through hard work, through good luck, who took advantage of opportunities had landed in the United States Indian Service, but who had not lost their Indian hearts, who had the desire to think for themselves and for their fellow American Indians and who had the opportunity to see the good things in the Indian Service, who had the opportunity to realize that there were a number of things that needed readjusting and who had the opportunity to get together and start and Indian organization of this sort. They had the opportunity to think out loud and to call on a few others who were not in the Indian Service and to explore the advisability of organizing Indians nationally. Then I found further that those young Indians in the United States Indian Services were willing to make whatever sacrifice became necessary and in whatever respect move along with this idea of organization to the point where they would get together Indians from all other the United States and we now, my fellow Indians, have brought you together. This is your meeting. Your thoughts and interests can command the interest of all Indians of the United States. Now that is the point to which we have arrived. 

I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to the youth — to the Indian youth in the United States Indian Service or to the representative in the branch of the Government. These men are directly concerned with our problems and our welfare. I know that those young people are gratified at seeing Indians here who have come from the tribal schools, who have gone to colleges in the United States, and even

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