Red Power!
Native American Activism during the Civil Rights Era
http://americanindiantah.com/lesson_plans/lp_red_power
.html
Introduction:
 The Red Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s consisted
of organized Indian resistance to almost 200 years of federal
policies that attempted to:
 destroy Indian culture and spirituality
 assimilate Indians into the non-Indian political and economic
structure
 dismantle Indian sovereignty.
Introduction, cont.
 As we will see, the influence and successes of the Red
Power movement is apparent in the continuing activism of
American Indians throughout the United States.
Indian Activist Russell Means
Group Discussion 1
 Group One - What is activism? How is it different or the same
as protest? How would you describe someone who is an
activist? A protester?
 Group Two - What is justice? Does every American have the
right to seek justice? If so, how? If not, why not?
 Group Three - Describe an issue about which you are
passionate. Would be willing to become politically active
about this issue? To what lengths would you go with your
activism?
Group Discussion 1
 Do you know of any constitutional guarantees for activism?
 How and why are these guarantees essential to activism?
 What is protest? How do the actions of activists and
protesters compare and contrast?
 When does activism become illegal?
Discussion:
 Can any of you think about any examples of Indian activism
that have occurred in the last 60 years?
 If you don't know any examples, or if you only know a very
few, why do you think there is such a gap in your knowledge?
 Why do you think the topic has been ignored by our
educational system?
Indian Activism
Indian Activism
 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.
 Most of these efforts were on behalf of individual Indian
nations, or small confederations of Indian nations, and, thus,
did not consist of a united effort on behalf of many Indian
nations.
Indian Activism
 In the 20th century that Indian activism took place on a
national level.
 During the 1940s and '50s, American Indian activism
primarily stressed negotiation, compromise, and a preference
for legal remedies.
 By the 1960s and 70s the interest in activism, rejection of
white privilege, and the search for freedom within
communities coincided with the early origins of the Civil
Rights Movement which was erupting across the southern
United States.
Indian Activism
 These three legal approaches to activism were primarily
directed by the oldest national Indian organization - the
National Congress of American Indians (NCAI).
 The NCAI, founded in 1944, restricted its membership to
persons of "Indian ancestry" who were members of any
"Indian tribe, band or community of Indians."
Indian Activism
 1961 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.
 This didn’t sit well with the younger generation.
Indian Activism
 Young Indian people who attended the conference created
the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC).
 Its primary goal was to resurrect a sense of national pride
among young Indian people.
 They were to look back to their own great cultural traditions
and make decisions about their lives based upon such
traditions.
Indian Activism
 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. They
became Red Power activists as well.
Indian Activism
What do you think is
happening here?
Can you predict when
these were taken?
Indian Activism
 Today, you are going to look at two different examples of
activism by these young native Americans during the 1960s
and 70s and create short presentations (7 – 10 slides) to
share with your classmates.
 The Native American takeover of Alcatraz
 Pine Ridge AIM 1973