Viewing page 50 of 88

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

We were confronted with these sobering thoughts when we assembled at Denver, Colorado, on November 15, 1944, delegates form 27 states, representing more than 50 tribes, to form a nation-wide organization of Indians. Against the dismal record were all the excellent reasons why the Indians should form themselves into an active, independent group. Everybody else had take a hand in determining Indian welfare and Indian destiny; why not the Indians themselves? So, with that thought in mind, the National Congress of American Indians was organized for the purpose, among other things, of enlightening the public toward a better understanding of Indian problems, to preserve Indian cultural values, to seek an adjustment of tribal affairs and to secure and preserve Indian rights under treaties with the Government.

Time will not permit me to mention all the achievements of the Indian Congress during the past six years. I only mention a few. In 1944, Indians were denied the right to vote in five states of this union. This, notwithstanding the fact that the American Indian was a United States citizen under the Act of 1924, and in both World Wars I and II contributed more in the purchase of war bonds and in manpower to the prosecution of those wars than any other comparable group within the nation. The National Congress of American Indians sponsored lawsuits assailing the constitutionalit8y of the laws of those states which denied the Indians the right to vote, and was successful. We sponsored the Indian Claims Commission Act which gave the Indian a forum where Indian claims might be more speedily adjudicated. We have rendered legal assistance to many tribes to protect their property rights. We advocate a program for the readjustment of the administration of Indian affairs more in keeping with present day needs. To this end we have collaborated with Indian tribes and individuals, Congressional committees and met with various denominational groups and non-Indian organizations interested in Indian welfare, to get their views to aid us in the formulation of a constructive program.

The American Indian wants most of all just to be an American citizen like other American citizens. He wants to assume the obligations and responsibilities of citizenship and to enjoy the privileges of citizenship. This he is entitled to. He no longer wants to be pictured a renegade or hostile in terms of old-fashioned history. He wants the American people to know of the important contributions the Indian people have made to white civilization and white culture. The Indian taught the white man how to cope with the wilderness of this new continent. Taught him to hunt, fish, trap and canoe. The Indians gave the white man the great gift of cotton, corn, tomatoes, peanuts, beans, squash, tobacco and potatoes, and these have today become multi-billion-dollar American industries. Too many Indians have bad lands, bad health, poverty and death in return. It is our hope through the marshalling of Indian leadership and the aid and cooperation of our white brothers, to bring about a better day for the Indian. We look forward to that day when the Indian will have passed out of our national life as the painted, romantic, feather-crowned hero of fiction, and will have added the current of his free, original American blood to the heart of this great nation.

-48-