Sioux, ex-Marine, former divinity student and savage wit

We shall overun

About 50 years ago — roughly about the time Americans were landing on the surface of the moon, and the Battle of Hamburger Hill raged in Vietnam — Vine Deloria, Jr.'s book "Custer Died For Your Sins" encouraged better use of federal funds aimed at helping Native Americans. It remains today, as one of the most significant non-fiction books written by a Native American.
It was shortly after Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down on the balcony of the Loraine Motel in Memphis, even as the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was winding its way through congress. And President Johnson signed that legislation, exactly a week later.
"We often hear 'give it back to the Indians' when a gadget fails to work. It is a terrible thing for a people to realize that society has set aside all non-working gadgets for their exclusive use," Deloria wrote at the time.
Today, with chants calling to "send her back," it seems true that, like Black Elk (Hehaka Sapa) pointed out years earlier, "You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle."
While noting that U.S. Presidents continually stressed the need to meet its treaty obligations with foreign powers, they have had over 400 treaties with Native American tribes and have yet to meet their obligations on any of them. Deloria saw the Vietnam war as just another example of the lack of integrity in the American government.

Deloria noted the similarities of the oppression of both Native Americans and African Americans, but also pointed out differences between the two. While oppression against African Americans typically excluded them from white society, oppression against Native Americans typically involved the forced inclusion into white society. He said he believed that this was due to the white desire to appropriate and exploit Native American lands and resources. He also noted that this is one of the reasons that Native Americans did not participate fully in civil rights efforts in the 1960s, believing that the liberals did not understand Native American nationalism. 

“To the Indians it seemed that these Europeans hated everything in nature - the living forests and their birds and beasts, the grassy grades, the water, the soil, the air itself,” noted another influential writer at the time, Dee Brown, in "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West."  

"It is said that when Columbus landed," wrote Deloria. "One Indian turned to another, and said, 'There goes the neighborhood." A favorite cartoon in Indian Country at the time, depicted a flying saucer landing while an Indian watched. "Oh no, not again," read the caption.

The year of 1964 had seen the emergence of the Indian vote on a national scale. But their independence was also recognized.

"The current joke is that a survey was taken and only 15 percent of Indians thought the United States should get out of Vietnam," Deloria said. "Eighty-five percent thought they should get out of America. "

I vote because I can, and to make sure it stays that way

 Voting rights cannot be denied or abridged

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

By the time you read this, like millions of Americans, you have already waded through the long list of judge retention, obscure suggested amendments, and pulled the lever (so to speak) for your choice for  running the local government, and other important races.
You don't see them as much as you once did, but certainly, you have earned that "I voted" sticker that once was popular. The incredibly long and troubling campaign season is, for all intents and purposes, over.
Your mission now, should you decide to accept it, is to reflect on why it was important.
Following is my own personal rationale.
The framers of the U.S. Constitution did not originally define who was eligible to vote, allowing each state to determine who was eligible. Early on, only white male adult property owners could vote in this country, for the most part. Not until 1856, were even all adult male white men open (without the property requirement) to the polls and five states still had poll taxes then.
In one of the more troubling aspects of American democracy, Native Americans were not recognized universally as persons until 1879, in the Standing Bear trial in Nebraska. It would be years later, in 1924, before we actually allowed that members of the tribes were United States citizens.
By definition, born within the national boundaries of the United States, those on reservations were considered citizens of their own tribes, rather than of the United States. They were denied the right to vote. In some cases, they could become citizens if they gave up their tribal affiliations after 1887, under the Dawes Act. This still did not guarantee their right to vote. In 1924 the remaining Native Americans, after preceding European settlers by most estimates by 5,000 years, finally became United States Citizens. But, many western states continued to restrict them after that.
Four United States Constitutional amendments, in particular were ratified to extend voting rights to different groups of citizens. Within these extensions, basically voting rights cannot be denied or abridged based on the following:
• "Race, color, or previous condition of servitude" (15th Amendment, 1870)
• "On account of sex" (19th Amendment, 1920)
• "By reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax" for federal elections (24th Amendment, 1964)
• "Who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of age" (26th Amendment, 1971)
I personally vote because I can, and to make sure it stays that way.
Perhaps we all should follow that lead.

Photo information:
1. In 1924 Native Americans were granted U.S. citizenship when Congress enacted the Indian Citizenship Act. It gave Native Americans the right to vote.
2. In 1948, after years of legal challenges, Native Americans in New Mexico gather to register to vote.