Native American Leadership and Activism since World War 2.

A major issue confronting Native Americans in the immediate post-war era was the continuing debate between the advocates of assimilation and those who favored some form of traditional tribal self-determination as a basis for participation, rather than assimilation into the American mainstream. This liberal cultural-pluralism policy had been advocated by Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930's. However in the more conservative climate of the 1940's and 50's, the reformist, interventionist policies of the Roosevelt era came under attack and many groups began to question the philosophy behind the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 and argued that tribal assets should not necessarily be owned collectively. The whole structure of federal interference in the operation of capitalist market forces as they affected Native Americans began to come under attack from the increasingly vocal advocates of termination. For example the American Indian Federation, representing highly assimilated Indians from Oklahoma, had opposed John Collier's New Deal policies, and by 1944-5 was calling for termination. The A.I.F. strategy was vigorously opposed by the National Congress of American Indians, a lobby group that had been organized in 1944 to represent Native-Americans of all tribes. This organization demanded that the philosophy of tribal self-determination should be maintained.

Another important issue in this immediate post-war era was the long running one of compensation. Many Indian groups had long-standing claims against the American government for lands and assets that had been unfairly seized. Liberals wanted this historic issue of injustice settled to assuage their guilt and wipe out resentments. The advocates of termination also supported compensation legislation as a first step towards the destruction of federal authority over Indian affairs. This coalition of interests lobbied until Congress passed the Indian Claims Commission Act in 1946. The plan soon ran into trouble. The three-person board could only give money for land; it could not take away lands that were now owned by the descendants of the original, often illegal white settlers. An example of the cultural misunderstanding that has bedeviled Indian-White relations is the case of the Taos Indians in the South West, taken up by the I.C.C. in the 1950's.

In 1906 an area sacred to the Taos Indians had been incorporated into the Kit Carson National Forest in northwestern New Mexico. In 1965 the I.C.C. came to a decision that awarded the Indians $10 million and nearly three thousand acres of land near the lake, as compensation for the earlier unjust transfer. What seemed to most white Americans as a generous offer, was unacceptable to the Taos people, one of whose leaders, Paul Bernal, said: 'My people will not sell our Blue Lake that is our church. We cannot sell what is sacred. It is not ours to sell.'

Under the influence of the general rise of militancy associated with the Civil Rights Movements of the late 1950's and the 1960's, more direct action protest began to characterize the new generation of activist Native Americans who were often urban-based and college-educated. The complicated, slow process of seeking compensation through the courts or working through the B.I.A. began to be seen by this new generation as appeasement 'uncle Tomahawk' strategies that did not expose the abuses that many American Indians suffered on the streets. It was out of this form of routine harassment of Indians by authorities such as the police that the American Indian Movement, known as AIM, was born in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1968. Under the leadership of Chippewa Indian organizer Denis Brutus, AIM members began to patrol Minneapolis and St. Paul streets after dark in order to intervene on behalf of the many Indians who were being harassed by the police without justification. As a result of this activity, the number of weekend arrests dropped from a regular number of around 200 to just a few. AIM also addressed the blatant discrimination against Indians in the workplace and pressured Honeywell Corporation, a major Minneapolis employer, to their number of Indian workers by 450. In the area of federal funding, AIM was instrumental in gaining a $4.3 million grant from the Housing and Urban Development Department to build 241 homes for Indians. AIM was also successful in making the educational curriculum more sensitive to the values and cultural achievements of Native American peoples, and conducted a seven year campaign to establish a center for Indian Culture which eventually led to the city of Minneapolis raising $1.9 million for a public institute that acted as a focus for the study and enhancement of Native American culture. AIM's cultural policy saw value in the past achievements of traditional Indian culture but was wary of the tendency of some Indians and many of their Anglo supporters, to concentrate on a romantic study of aboriginal survivals. AIM wanted American Indians to make a living, dynamic contribution to a pluralistic modem American society.

AIM inspired a whole range of direct-action sit-ins and occupations, from the taking over of Alcatraz Island in 1969 to the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. A statement issued by the Alcatraz occupiers before they were evicted in 1971, embodies the flair of this T.V. generation of assertive Native Americans for gaining worldwide publicity that embarrassed America, and reminded the world of the historic and contemporary grievances of the American Indians that simply would not and cannot go away. With heavy irony the manifesto began with a generous offer by the Indians to the White inhabitants of the island of Alcatraz:

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