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“We are among the poor, the powerless, the inexperienced and the inarticulate”: Clyde Warrior’s Campaign for a “Greater Indian America”

April 2010
The American Indian Quarterly 34(2):224-257

DOI:10.1353/aiq.0.0107

Authors:

University of Lethbridge

The 1960s was a turbulent decade as cultures merged, clashed, and often created subcultures within American society. Mass protests, demonstrations, riots, and violence scarred the nation’s psyche as America’s youth, of all colors and creeds, demanded a new style of leadership and new rules for living. One such activist was Clyde Warrior (Ponca), a founding member of the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC). Warrior was a leading influence upon the generation of college-educated Indians who participated in the Red Power movement of the 1960s. Long before “Red Power” became the jingoistic slogan of the American Indian Movement at the end of the 1960s and in the early 1970s, Warrior and NIYC cofounder, Mel Thom (Paiute), adopted the phrase as a tongue-in-cheek response to the Black Power movement. Although he always disputed the idea, to many people Warrior was not only an advocate of American Indian rights until his tragically early death in 1968 but the leader of the Red Power movement.1 Warrior’s many speeches and articles bristled with anger at federal imposition upon and colonial administration of Indian nations and peoples, and yet he was much more a cultural than a political activist. His primary focus was always on what could be done for and by Indians rather than against what was being done to Indians. As such, Indians themselves were often the targets of his speeches. As an early advocate of tribal self-determination, Warrior’s rhetoric was extremely proactive with regard to finding solutions to the “Indian problem.” Intent upon finding new ways for Indians to take their place in this world on their own terms rather than on those of the dominant white society, he was acutely aware of the seismic societal changes affecting America and the rest of the world. He often sought political answers and examples from the global decolonization efforts of other indigenous peoples in the cold war era. Despite this awareness of other cultures and societies and Indian communities, Warrior neither represented nor adopted a pan-Indian, or pantribal, approach to these issues, as many scholars contend. In 1955 Dr. James Howard described pan-Indianism as the process by which tribes were “losing their tribal distinctiveness and in its place are developing a nontribal ‘Indian’ culture” that was “one of the final stages of progressive acculturation, just prior to complete assimilation.” In 1962 Warrior’s mentor, Robert Thomas (Cherokee), described a “Pan Indian movement which is . . . designed to achieve and improve understanding of Indianism to the dominant society” before adding in 1965 that it was “the creation of a new identity, a new ethnic group, if you will, a new ‘nationality’ in America.”2 Contrary to Howard’s and Thomas’s descriptions, though, Warrior’s identity, ethnic group, and nationality were all purely Ponca. It is somewhat ironic that even though Warrior knew and was influenced by both men, his own speeches and rhetoric more closely resembled the intertribal cultural motif of the powwow world. His own cultural and tribal identity, heritage, and community always buttressed his messages with an acknowledgment of shared meanings and symbols rather than any attempt at a generic Indian identity. While this tribal ethnocentrism was obvious in his later speeches, all of his speeches focused upon the unyielding yet reciprocal relationship between the individual and the community. He often talked about the obligations of the individual as an agent of change to aid his or her community and people.3 Warrior’s upbringing was such that this ethnocentrism was hardly surprising. He was born in Ponca City in 1939, and his maternal grandparents ensured that he was deeply immersed in traditional Ponca culture from a very early age. He was fluent in his tribal language, songs, dances, and history, and his grandparents’ stories often formed the backdrop to his rhetoric. An accomplished Fancy Dancer whose “whole body was just fluid with the drum and singing . . . it just blended in with the music,” Warrior was also involved in his tribe’s revitalization of their sacred Hethuska society and was appointed the society’s first Tail Dancer in 1958 (fig. 1).4 Fellow activist and NIYC member Hank Adams later remembered Warrior as...

Clyde Warrior in Tail Dance regalia. Courtesy of the Ponca City News.

…

Clyde Warrior (center) with Bruce Wilkie (left) and Mel Thom (right) at a conference in Nevada in 1964. Reproduced from Stan Steiner's The New Indians.

…

Figures - uploaded by Paul McKenzie-Jones

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Content uploaded by Paul McKenzie-Jones

Content may be subject to copyright.

“ We are among the poor, the powerless,

the inexperienced and the inarticulate”

Clyde Warrior’s Campaign for a “Greater Indian America”

paul mckenzie-jones

The 1960s was a turbulent decade as cultures merged, clashed, and often

created subcultures within American society. Mass protests, demonstra-

tions, riots, and violence scarred the nation’s psyche as America’s youth,

of all colors and creeds, demanded a new style of leadership and new

rules for living. One such activist was Clyde Warrior (Ponca), a founding

member of the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC). Warrior was a

leading inﬂ uence upon the generation of college-educated Indians who

participated in the Red Power movement of the 1960s. Long before “Red

Power” became the jingoistic slogan of the American Indian Movement

at the end of the 1960s and in the early 1970s, Warrior and NIYC co-

founder, Mel Thom (Paiute), adopted the phrase as a tongue-in-cheek

response to the Black Power movement. Although he always disputed

the idea, to many people Warrior was not only an advocate of American

Indian rights until his tragically early death in 1968 but the leader of the

Red Power movement.1

Warrior’s many speeches and articles bristled with anger at federal

imposition upon and colonial administration of Indian nations and

peoples, and yet he was much more a cultural than a political activist.

His primary focus was always on what could be done for and by Indians

rather than against what was being done to Indians. As such, Indians

themselves were often the targets of his speeches. As an early advocate

of tribal self-determination, Warrior’s rhetoric was extremely proactive

with regard to ﬁ nding solutions to the “Indian problem.” Intent upon

ﬁ nding new ways for Indians to take their place in this world on their

own terms rather than on those of the dominant white society, he was

acutely aware of the seismic societal changes affecting America and the

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 225

rest of the world. He often sought political answers and examples from

the global decolonization efforts of other indigenous peoples in the cold

war era. Despite this awareness of other cultures and societies and Indian

communities, Warrior neither represented nor adopted a pan-Indian, or

pantribal, approach to these issues, as many scholars contend.

In 1955 Dr. James Howard described pan-Indianism as the process by

which tribes were “losing their tribal distinctiveness and in its place are

developing a nontribal ‘Indian’ culture” that was “one of the ﬁ nal stages

of progressive acculturation, just prior to complete assimilation.” In 1962

Warrior’s mentor, Robert Thomas (Cherokee), described a “Pan Indian

movement which is . . . designed to achieve and improve understanding

of Indianism to the dominant society” before adding in 1965 that it was

“the creation of a new identity, a new ethnic group, if you will, a new

‘nationality’ in America.”2

Contrary to Howard’s and Thomas’s descriptions, though, Warrior’s

identity, ethnic group, and nationality were all purely Ponca. It is some-

what ironic that even though Warrior knew and was inﬂ uenced by both

men, his own speeches and rhetoric more closely resembled the inter-

tribal cultural motif of the powwow world. His own cultural and tribal

identity, heritage, and community always buttressed his messages with

an acknowledgment of shared meanings and symbols rather than any

attempt at a generic Indian identity. While this tribal ethnocentrism was

obvious in his later speeches, all of his speeches focused upon the un-

yielding yet reciprocal relationship between the individual and the com-

munity. He often talked about the obligations of the individual as an

agent of change to aid his or her community and people.3

Warrior’s upbringing was such that this ethnocentrism was hardly

surprising. He was born in Ponca City in 1939, and his maternal grand-

parents ensured that he was deeply immersed in traditional Ponca cul-

ture from a very early age. He was ﬂ uent in his tribal language, songs,

dances, and history, and his grandparents’ stories often formed the back-

drop to his rhetoric. An accomplished Fancy Dancer whose “whole body

was just ﬂ uid with the drum and singing . . . it just blended in with the

music,” Warrior was also involved in his tribe’s revitalization of their sa-

cred Hethuska society and was appointed the society’s ﬁ rst Tail Dancer

in 1958 (ﬁ g. 1).4

Fellow activist and NIYC member Hank Adams later remembered

Warrior as a cultural carrier rather than a political animal. Indeed, while

226 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

many people celebrate Warrior for his eloquent and bellicose condemna-

tion of federal Indian policy, Adams recalled that “Clyde quickly learned

virtually every song from any tribe that he heard or was sung in his pres-

ence. That’s where his life was, in the song.” This upbringing and cultural

immersion meant that from an early age Warrior was also aware of the

vast difference between the role and signiﬁ cance of culturally traditional

tribal elders within the community compared to political tribal lead-

ers, and his speeches and articles often reﬂ ected that knowledge. Often

quick to condemn tribal political leaders, he was always respectful and

protective of those elders who carried and encapsulated tribal tradition,

heritage, and knowledge.5

Fig. 1. Clyde Warrior in Tail Dance regalia. Courtesy of the Ponca City News.

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 227

Through his conference speeches and magazine articles Warrior stirred

the conscience of many of his Indian student cohorts to seek change for

themselves rather than accept the status quo. In 1961 he was elected to

the presidency of the Southwest Regional Indian Youth Council (SRIYC)

and attended the Boulder, Colorado, Workshops on American Indian

Affairs. The Workshops, which he also attended in 1962, offered him sev-

eral pivotal opportunities in his life. They also created certain paradoxes

with which he had to contend during his own student and activist ca-

reer. Ostensibly, the Workshops were designed to “educate and shape the

students into wise Indian leadership” who would return to their com-

munities “better equipped to make a positive difference.” The organizers

attempted to implant the “notion that Indians would do best if they were

allowed to make their own mistakes.”6 While Warrior wholeheartedly

absorbed that latter message into his rhetoric, he later began to argue

against the concept of using education explicitly as a tool to train leaders

rather than using education to ferment knowledge.

Workshop attendance also introduced him to Robert Thomas, an an-

thropology graduate student who introduced Warrior and the other stu-

dents to the concept of federal colonialism and the tribal community

as a folk society and with whom he was to later coedit the Indian Voices

newsletter. The ﬁ rst week of the Workshops was spent in attendance at

the American Indian Chicago Conference, where Warrior also won sec-

ond place in the war dance contest of the accompanying powwow. It was

from this conference that Warrior, along with nine other Indian youths,

formed the National Indian Youth Council, in recognition that “the fu-

ture of the Indian people will ultimately rest in the hands of the younger

people.”7 He also managed to keep up a steady presence in as many pow-

wows as he possibly could. Indeed, while on his way from the Workshops

in Boulder to the formative meeting of the NIYC in Gallup, New Mexico,

he took a rather circuitous route via the All American Indian Days cel-

ebration in Sheridan, Wyoming.

In 1963 he joined the SNCC’s March on Washington for Jobs and

Freedom, which culminated in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s iconic “I Have

a Dream” speech. Warrior’s ﬁ rst three years in the NIYC were primar-

ily spent attending college, fund-raising, attempting to professionalize

the organization, and visiting various regional youth councils to re-

cruit, energize, and agitate his fellow American Indian students. One

such conference was the Regional Indian Youth Conference on Indian

228 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

Leadership at Wisconsin State University in 1964, where he presented

his speech “Time for Indian Action.” He opened the speech by discuss-

ing the student uprisings that were taking place across Europe and Latin

America before describing the student movement in America as being

a “quiet revolution” in comparison. This was due to the inability to see

“our young people in America as really a potent force for change in our

society.” He also claimed that American Indian students were “sitting on

the sidelines” of “perhaps an even greater social movement than student

protests in other parts of the world.” In Warrior’s view these students

did not have the freedom of choice available to other students, as “all the

expectations of the adults around him—Indian leaders, teachers, adults

interested in Indian affairs—are keeping Indian students from being

a student.” He clariﬁ ed this by stating that “many Indian students see

themselves as going on after college and becoming Indian leaders. They

are in training to be. They are not being.” He highlighted the unfairness

of the situation facing these Indian students by saying in an aside that

while white society trained its young people to become leaders eventu-

ally if they chose, “I know of no society (except Indian) that expects young

people to be leaders.”8

Warrior also identiﬁ ed the conference organizers as being part of this

problem. He noted that “when I go to conferences at which these ‘future

Indian leaders’ are gathered together, I get the impression many times

that these very same adults have structured the conference, deﬁ ned the

problem, and implied the solutions,” leaving little room for the students

gathered to propose any meaningful suggestions for change themselves.

He also indicated that he was not alone in this viewpoint, stating in a

theme that he would pick up again in later speeches that “many older In-

dians, in fact, feel that white adults use their young people against them,”

especially those educators who were teaching young Indians that their

heritage was worthless.9 This issue in particular contributed to the birth

of the NIYC. It reminded them that while Indian leaders expected their

youth to be able to lead, they also expected them to be told how to lead

rather than have their own opinions on that leadership.

Choice was a theme to which Warrior would return in many of his

speeches. He warned his audience that “American Indian students have

very little choice in the world. They cannot even choose not to be ‘future

Indian leaders.’” With rhetoric reminiscent of the 1962 Port Huron State-

ment of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and highlighting

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 229

his knowledge of the greater civil rights movement around him, he sug-

gested that “you refuse to take that deﬁ nition of yourself and be students

and youth.” He challenged the students in the audience to “participate

in the condition of being students and youth. Figure out together your

generation’s idea of what is wrong and right in the world and in the In-

dian world, particularly. Give yourself some freedom. In fact, I am tell-

ing you to take your freedom. I say do as you please.” He then told them

that “after you have thought these things out as Indian students, if you

want to be active in Indian Affairs, do that! If you are content with your

new discoveries, only in your daily life, by all means do that! But most of

all be free students, students with a capital S.” He ﬁ nished the speech by

inviting his audience to shake those shackles imposed by Indian leaders

and to “be a student with me and to take action for your generation, as

students. If you choose to take action I will welcome you and together we

will not be left out of this exciting time in history. We will live and learn

as students, as youth, and as Indians.”10

A few months after tackling the issue of the unfair expectations placed

on Indian students in “Time for Indian Action,” Warrior published

an article titled “Which One Are You?” in the NIYC’s newsletter, ABC:

Americans Before Columbus. The newsletter had been created to keep all

members of the NIYC abreast of political and cultural events as they

happened from region to region and tribe to tribe. As such, Warrior’s

identiﬁ cation of the types of Indians he saw these expectations creating

was directed toward the very people it argued against: young Indians.

Before describing the ﬁ ve types in detail he warned his readers that “this

writer does not pretend to know why (they exist)” but could only “offer

an opinion as to name and types, deﬁ ne their characteristics, and of-

fer a possible alternative.” He emphasized alternative rather than solu-

tion before adding that “all this writer is merely saying is he does not

like Indian youth being turned into something that is not ‘real’ and that

somebody needs to offer a better alternative.” These ﬁ ve types included

the “the slob, or hood,” who molds himself into the white misconcep-

tion of Indianness “by dropping out of school, becomes a ‘wino,’ eventu-

ally becomes a court case, usually sent off. . . . [A]nother Indian hits the

dust, through no fault of his own.” The second was the “joker,” who “has

deﬁ ned to himself that to be an Indian is a joke. An Indian does stupid,

funny things . . . and he goes through life a bungling clown.” The third

was the “redskin ‘white noser’ or sellout,” who “has accepted . . . the deﬁ -

230 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

nition that anything Indian is dumb, usually ﬁ lthy, and immoral, and to

avoid this is to become a ‘LITTLE BROWN AMERICAN’ by associating

and identifying with everything that is white. Thus society has created

the ﬁ nk of ﬁ nks.” The fourth type was the “ultra-pseudo Indian,” who

“is proud that he is Indian but for some reason does not know how one

acts. Therefore, he takes his cues from non-Indian sources, books, shows,

etc. and proceeds to act ‘Indian.’ Hence, we have a proud, phony, Indian.”

The ﬁ nal type was the “angry nationalist,” who “is generally closer to true

‘Indianism’ than the other types, and they resent the others for being

ashamed of their own kind.” He went on to say that “this type tends to

dislike the older generations who have been ‘Uncle Tomahawks’ or ‘yes

men’ to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and whites in general.” He claimed

that this type viewed the “problems of personality disappearance” with

“bitter abstract and ideological thinking” and were labeled “radicals,”

as they tended to “alienate themselves from the general masses of Indi-

ans for speaking as it appears to them, ‘TRUTHS.’”11 Ironically, Warrior

himself was often placed into this ﬁ nal category. His childhood friend

Browning Pipestem recalled that many other Indian students hated War-

rior “because he was right.”12

Warrior’s alternative to these types was for “genuine contemporary

creative thinking, democratic leadership to set guidelines, cues and goals

for the average Indian.” He emphasized that “the guidelines and goals

need to be based on true Indian philosophy geared to modern times,

[but] this will not come about without nationalistic pride in one’s own

self and one’s own kind.” Superﬁ cially, Warrior appeared to be drawing

Indians under a single pantribal identity, but he emphasized tribal dis-

tinction, less forcefully than he would do in later speeches, in his refer-

ence to nationalism and “one’s own kind.” Drawing on the expectations

placed on Indian students, he declared that “this group can evolve only

from today’s college youth, not from those who have sold out, or those

who do not understand true Indianism. Only from those with pride,

love, and understanding of the people and the people’s way from which

they come can this evolve.”13

As well as those Indian youths who had fallen into the types he de-

scribed, Warrior lambasted those he felt were responsible for creating

them. He declared that “this writer [is] fed up with religious workers

and educationalists incapable of understanding, and pseudo–social sci-

entists who are consciously creating social and cultural genocide among

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 231

American Indian youth.” Displaying his ability to distinguish leaders

from elders, he wrote: “I am sick and tired of seeing my elders stripped

of dignity and low-rated in the eyes of their young. And I am disturbed

to the point of screaming when I see American Indian youth accepting

the horror of ‘American conformity’ as being the only way for Indian

progress.” He ended the article by placing the responsibility for ﬁ nd-

ing an alternative to the situation ﬁ rmly with the NIYC to forge a new

path rather than simply following the example of tribal leaders, saying,

“The National Indian Youth Council must introduce to this sick room

of stench and anonymity some fresh air of new Indianness.” Borrowing

from Mel Thom’s iconic NIYC presidential inauguration address, he in-

sisted that what was needed was “a fresh air of new honesty and integrity,

a fresh air of new Indian idealism, a fresh air of a new ‘greater Indian

America’” before issuing the simple, yet powerful, call to arms of “How

about it? Let’s raise some hell.”14

“Which One Are You?” generated a massive response among ABC’s

readers, and Warrior published a follow-up article entitled “How Should

an Indian Act?” in which he clariﬁ ed many of his points from the previ-

ous article. He contextualized his earlier diatribe by telling readers that

he had not intended to tell them how to act, nor was he suggesting that

Fig. 2. Clyde Warrior (center) with Bruce Wilkie (left) and Mel Thom (right) at a

conference in Nevada in 1964. Reproduced from Stan Steiner’s The New Indians.

232 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

every Indian student fell into one of his categories. He reassured them

that “it is a tribute to the human spirit that so many young Indians have

survived our ‘educational’ institutions and are still whole human beings.”

He did add, however, that “it appears to me that the individual Indian

student had better ‘WAKE UP’ and decide if he is going to accept these

deﬁ nitions that are being cued to him by this alien society and institu-

tions.” The sooner “the American Indian gets into gear, the sooner we

will get our rightful share of this fat and rich American way of life.”15

Warrior developed his themes of “selling out” Indian heritage, in con-

trast to attaining self-awareness and self-identity and showing respect

for elders and one’s tribal heritage and community, as he attended more

conferences throughout the 1960s. He also often took his rhetoric be-

yond Indian Country to prove his point. In June 1965, ﬁ ve months after

the “Great Society” speech, in which LBJ declared the “War on Poverty,”

Warrior spoke before the Vermillion Conference, an annual anthropo-

logical gathering at the University of South Dakota. The speech, titled

“Don’t Take No for an Answer,” showed his aptitude for irony as well

as his penchant for rhetoric as he drew upon the Western world’s two

most iconic twentieth-century leaders, John F. Kennedy and Winston

Churchill, to inspire those Indians in the audience into action. In ret-

rospect, however, the speech is as problematic as it was inspiring. War-

rior, perhaps unwittingly, displayed the same propensity to stereotype

other ethnicities that he so often accused whites of doing to Indians.

His intention to inspire his audience to reject assimilation at all costs

was clear. His method of doing so, however, raised questions of his own

cross-cultural awareness, which he attempted to rectify in later speeches.

Inspired by his reading of Robert Redﬁ eld’s essays on Folk Society at the

1961 Workshops, Warrior compared Indians and their role in American

society and culture to Catholics and Jews, whom he deemed comparative

ethnic minorities and spiritual communities.

Warrior lauded Kennedy as the epitome of what could be achieved

by individuals within an ethnic group that refused to assimilate into the

American mainstream. He stated that instead of becoming “pet Irish-

men as many Indians have become ‘pet’ Indians,” the Irish used their

natural propensity for politics to forge their own niche in America.

“By this move, the Irish gained access to new jobs and to new power in

American society and later Irish businessmen like the Kennedys con-

tributed money to the cause of Irish advancement and the betterment

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 233

of their people in the United States.” He used American Jews as a ex-

ample of how education could be used for the betterment rather than

the subjugation of a race, claiming, “They have seen education as the

way to contribute to the Jewish community, not necessarily to leave it

or coerce it.” His argument was that these “two ethnic groups have made

it in America, as whole communities” and pointed out that in contrast

to Indian people “they did not separate themselves off from the rest of

their community, they did not try to please powerful people by trying to

change their community to ﬁ t some image handed them on a platter as

is done in American Indian communities.” In other words, they did not

accept that assimilation was the only means by which to escape poverty

or disparity within America.16

Reprising an issue ﬁ rst raised in “Time for Indian Action,” Warrior

challenged those Indians in the audience to buck the trend. He told them

that “every youth conference that I have ever gone to has been attended

primarily by Indian students who want to break away from their own

community and curry favor with the powerful in hopes of getting a few

crumbs of rank.” The gauntlet that Warrior threw down was simply that

“I hope this will not be the case at this conference.” He also questioned

the veracity of his fellow conference attendees, claiming that “the ﬁ rst

thing that happens is that everyone wants to talk about the Indian prob-

lem . . . and it always turns out that the Indian problem is deﬁ ned implic-

itly as those ways in which Indians are a problem to powerful whites.”

Warrior’s intention was to challenge his audience to ﬁ nd their own

solutions as to how they deﬁ ned the problem rather than simply follow

the direction in which they were led. Cautioning his audience that “these

so called problems are only symptoms of the total situation in which

Indians ﬁ nd themselves,” he asked them, “Do we really want to help our

people or just please the powerful?” He challenged them, “having de-

ﬁ ned the ‘Indian problem,’” to ask, “How do we as Indians change the

situation, not how do we help whites ‘shape up’ our relatives?” His solu-

tion was that “we have to throw away these old categories and talk about

the situation as a whole and how we as a people can use our talents to

make a place for ourselves on the American scene, just as the Irish and

Jewish people have done.”17

Warrior again turned to issues introduced in “Time for Indian Action,”

telling the audience that “this does not mean that we all need to think

about becoming tribal leaders or that we have to discuss only the Indian

234 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

community.” He also pointed out to his audience that they already were

Americans and had no need to cast off their cultural identity to become

more so. He challenged them to “think as Americans about what kind of

country we want to live in so that we as Indian people can ﬁ nd and make

our place in it.” Raising the issue of self-awareness, he reminded them that

“the problem of what we want as individuals, as Indians, and as Ameri-

cans are inseparable. We cannot talk about one without talking about the

other because we are individuals, we are Indians, and we are American.”

He asked the audience to “let us discuss these things together and forget

the clichés and bromides which have been shoved [down] our throats all

of our lives by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, churches and other powerful

whites.” Returning to the theme of the tribal community, one he would

deﬁ ne more clearly in later speeches, he urged the audience to “think

about how we as Indians can help our communities break out of the trap

we ﬁ nd ourselves in. . . . [T]hink about what kind of community we want

to live in—then think about how we are going to bring that about.”

This

assessment of community contrasted starkly with the concept of commu-

nity that emerged to form the bedrock of the War on Poverty.

Warrior was building toward another stirring ﬁ nale and reminded his

audience that “in the old days . . . it was young people who became the

hunters and the warriors and led our people out onto the plains.” It was

the young who had “created the golden age of the Indian” by “helping

and serving their community.” He told them that “Indian young people

can do that again but we need courage, imagination and dedication.”

Warrior now openly embraced the concept of youth leadership rather

than eschewing it. The difference was born of a belief bolstered by the

success of the ﬁ sh-ins of 1964, when the youth, led by Warrior and Hank

Adams, successfully brought the abrogation of the tribal treaty ﬁ shing

rights of the Indians of the Paciﬁ c Northwest by the state of Washington

to the attention of the national media and federal agencies. According to

Warrior, youth was not deﬁ ned by a person’s age but by how young that

person felt. Turning to a powerful passage from Winston Churchill’s au-

tobiography, he omitted Churchill’s opening call to those of “twenty to

twenty ﬁ ve years.” Warrior, in his most inspiring closure to date, invited

his audience to

raise the glorious ﬂ ags again, advance them upon the new ene-

mies, who constantly gather upon the front of the human army,

and have only to be assaulted to be overthrown. Don’t take No for

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 235

an answer. Never submit to failure. Do not be fobbed off with mere

personal success or acceptance. You will make all kinds of mis-

takes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also ﬁ erce, you

cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was made

to be wooed and won by youth. She has lived and thrived only by

repeated subjugations.19

In June of the same year Warrior had a speech entitled “Poverty, Com-

munity, and Power” published in New University Thought magazine. The

published speech was one that War on Poverty conference organizers

had banned him from presenting earlier in the year. While the speech

Warrior was “allowed” to present still offered as damning an indictment

of white society as his previous speeches, it was neither as vitriolic nor

as personal as the banned version. His ability to speak freely was, how-

ever, hampered by his impromptu presentation to the American Indian

Capital Conference on Poverty in May 1964. At the AICCP the attendant

youth caucus, which included fellow NIYC members Robert Dumont

(Cree) and Tillie Walker (Mandan), took the position that in order to

combat poverty among American Indians the government needed to

adopt a “cultural framework that respected traditional tribal values.”

Despite this being a position with which Warrior concurred, he did not

approve of the rather “tame” language of the youth report. Aided by an-

other NIYC member, Shirley Witt (Mohawk), Warrior respectfully in-

terrupted the proceedings to give his own viewpoint. Speaking in the

presence of Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Secretary of the Interior

Stewart Udall, present and future Commissioners of Indian Affairs Phi-

leo Nash and Robert Bennett (Oneida), Warrior “horriﬁ ed all the tame

Indians in the room” by declaring that the government had systemati-

cally deprived tribal elders of “basic life experiences” through their ad-

ministration of tribal life.20

Even in the speech Warrior was allowed to present at the War on Pov-

erty conference he attacked the reservation system that still dominated

many tribal communities. Drawing upon the lessons he had learned at

the Boulder Workshops, he stated that these reservations “are adminis-

tered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in much the same way that an im-

perial government administers a colony.” The metaphor of colonialism

was rife among Native American activists, in keeping with the global in-

digenous movement. Warrior compared the government’s provision of

“trusteeship for the land, social services, and programs designed by non-

236 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

Indians for the betterment of Indians” with “McNamara’s designing of a

military program for South Viet Nam,” claiming that “the fact is nobody

knows what the hell is going on.”21

Retaining his theme of domestic colonialism, Warrior described the

“ﬁ ction” of tribal sovereignty within the federal trust relationship and

asked, “If these sovereign entities have self-government, why are their

acts subject to approval by the Secretary of the Interior?” He described

how “American Indians exist today in a variety of social and economic

circumstances. . . . [H]owever the majority of Indians are presently on re-

lief.” Warrior also introduced the theme of Indian unity, or the perceived

lack thereof, and laid claim that the only pan-Indian condition was one

of mutual poverty. He claimed that “in the past they (Indians) had no

one particular thing in common. Today, thanks to Western civilization,

they have ﬁ nally found the common denominator—poverty.” Regarding

the civil rights movement he had discussed in “Time for Indian Action,”

he noted that “American Indians are not as concerned with civil rights as

they are about going to bed with an empty stomach.” Warrior again used

his innate connection to his own community and tribal history as the

fulcrum of his message. In response to why “many people wonder why

this is so,” he told the audience that “American Indians come out of a

very deﬁ nite, deﬁ ned historical tradition which stresses the preservation

of the family, the people, and the community.”22

Warrior emphasized the uniqueness and diversity of Indian cultures

across America. Highlighting his distinctly intertribal perspective, War-

rior stated: “Today I see my people yet speaking many different tongues

and living their lives in many different ways. . . . [B]ut by and large the

American public disregards and ignores the fact that American Indians,

like most other ethnic groups, want very much to maintain their heritage

and their culture.” Warrior again insisted that ignorance of tribal diver-

sity led to the perpetuation of the “Indian Problem.” He claimed that

“it is typical of bureaucratic societies that when one takes upon him-

self to improve a situation, one immediately, unknowingly falls into a

structure of thinking.” He told them that “you take the existing avenues

of so-called improvement and reinforce the existing condition, thereby

re-inforcing [sic] and strengthening the ills that are implicit in the very

structure of that society.” In reference to his banned speech and why he

felt he was prevented from presenting it at the conference, he declared

that “in January of this year the National Indian Youth Council submit-

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 237

ted a statement to the National Conference on Poverty in the Southwest”

before noting that “this fell on deaf ears because it was essentially a pro-

test against the very conditions outlined above.”

Warrior closed his speech by urging his peers to accept the challenge

of President Johnson’s vision of America, which “rests on abundance and

liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which

we are totally committed in our time.” He cautioned that “what was once

thought a fantasy could become a reality. But if you don’t speak, no one

will listen.”23

Warrior’s banned speech more speciﬁ cally addressed his sense of the

potential futility of the War on Poverty in relation to Indian peoples and

tribal communities. While he claimed no racial boundaries to the col-

lective powerlessness of the poor to effect change on their own within

the current system, he did focus very much on his own Ponca commu-

nity as an example of American Indian poverty. He again demanded that

changes be made to the system in order for it to be truly effective in help-

ing to defeat poverty.

Introducing himself as “a full blood Ponca Indian from Oklahoma,”

he stated that his purpose was to “try as much as I can, to present to

you the views of Indian youth.” He wrote that “if I start my presentation

with a slightly cynical quote (‘Are you contributing to the solution or

to the problem?’), it is because American Indians generally and Indian

youth particularly are more than a little cynical about programs devised

for our betterment.” He claimed that this was because “these programs

have, by and large, resulted in bitter divisions and strife in our commu-

nities, further impoverishment and the placing of our parents in a more

and more powerless position.” He noted that these divisions had led the

more traditional elders to withdraw from society and that “this has been

the experience of Indian youth—to see our leaders become impotent

and less experienced in handling the modern world.” This was in stark

contrast to tribal leaders who used political power to manipulate com-

munity programs for their own beneﬁ t rather than the tribes. He offered

the assessment that “the indignity of Indian life, and I would presume

the indignity of life among the poor generally in the United States is the

powerless of those who are ‘out of it,’ but who yet are coerced and ma-

nipulated by the very system which excludes them.”24

Warrior admitted, “I must say I smiled at the suggestion that this

conference would draw together articulate spokesmen for the poor.” He

238 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

chastised the organizers for their imperiousness, stating that “there may

indeed be articulate spokesmen for the poor, but there are no articulate

spokesmen of the poor.” He told them that “if my relatives were articulate

they would not be poor. . . . They might not be the warm human beings

they are, but they would be verbal, aggressive, and not so poor.” Attack-

ing the social system within American society that was maintaining the

poverty situation, he argued that “the powerful do not want change . . .

and it is futile to work within this framework.” He challenged the orga-

nizers of the conference to prove themselves capable of waging the War

on Poverty. Preparing them for the verbal onslaught he was about to de-

liver, Warrior warned them: “I hope that men of good will even among

the powerful are willing to have their ‘boat rocked’ a little in order to ac-

complish the task our country has set itself.”25

Warrior reiterated his cynicism at the government’s programs for the

poor, saying, “Now we have a new crusade in America—our ‘War on

Poverty’—which purports to begin with a revolutionary new concept—

working with the local community.” Johnson’s front line in the War on

Poverty was indeed the local community. The plan was for local com-

munity action by citizens to help individuals, families, and communities

to help themselves, as they would know better than federal bureaucrats

what action was actually needed. As with other federal Indian policies,

however, this self-help was not immediately offered to Indian communi-

ties, which was a situation Warrior sought to change. Showing the bel-

licosity and acerbic wit for which he was famous, Warrior stated that

“Indian youth could not be more pleased with these kinds of statements,

and we hope that for the ﬁ rst time since we were disposed of as a military

threat our parents will have something to say about their own destiny

and not be ignored as is usually the case.” Warrior did concede: “I do

not doubt that all of you are men of good will and that you do intend to

work with the local community. My only fear is what you think the local

community is.”26

Warrior used this last comment to emphasize the very different world-

views held by whites and Indians in regard to the deﬁ nition of commu-

nity. He noted: “It has been my experience that many Americans think

of a community in terms of a physical area or a legal unit, not in terms

of a social unit—a unit where people have close personal ties one to

another.” He used his own Ponca tribe as an example, saying that “the

Ponca tribe of which I am a member lives in Kay County, Oklahoma.

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 239

You could call Kay County a community, it is a legally designated unit,

but if it is a community my relatives are not part of it.” He then dissected

this deﬁ nition of community further, saying that “I would imagine Kay

County, Oklahoma to be a number of different communities, as I use

the term—several white communities and an Indian community.” He

commented that “there is probably some overlap between the various

white communities in our county, but certainly our Indian community,

as far as being part of Kay County, might as well be on Mars.” Drawing

again on the powerlessness of Indian communities, a situation he was

attempting to change within his own community, he reiterated that “our

communities have no representation in the legally designated units of

which we are a part.”27

Referring to the complexity of the trust relationship between tribes

and the federal government, Warrior acknowledged that “with the Indi-

ans this is even more complicated because, as many of you know, we do

have a legal structure which articulates with the central government even

though we have no articulation with the county and state government.”

Referring again to the “ﬁ ction” of tribal sovereignty, he noted, however,

that “these institutions called tribal governments have very limited func-

tions from the viewpoint of the Indians who live in our communities.”

Ostensibly, while these governments technically had a sovereign rela-

tionship with the federal government, no such relationship of “equal-

ity” was in place with the much closer state, county, or city government.

Warrior argued that federal recognition and status was all well and good,

but it did little to alleviate the tensions of relationships with those lo-

cal agencies whose policies continuously and dramatically affected tribal

community life. Referring to the role of tribal governments within those

communities and how little white people understood tribal communi-

ties, he stated that “in most places they serve as a buffer against the out-

sider. And in fact other people of prestige and inﬂ uence among us go

unnoticed and unbothered by the white man, so that much of our im-

portant leadership is hidden from the eyes of outsiders.”

The paradox of this statement was not lost on Warrior. Ambitious yet

weak tribal governments were alienating the culturally inﬂ uential tribal

elders, but this alienation in turn was protecting those cultural leaders

from the harm of white interference. Conversely, the true cultural and

spiritual tribal leadership was kept hidden from view while the corrupt

and ambitious leaders curried favor with powerful whites at the expense

240 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

of the tribe as a whole and as a community. It was a position that under

current federal programs had no positive outcome for the Ponca or in-

deed other tribes in the same situation. Lamenting the overall iniquity

of Indian Affairs, Warrior complained that “many times our tribal gov-

ernments, which have very little legal power, have been forced into the

position of going along with programs they did not like and which in the

long run were harmful.” He again reiterated that “they were powerless to

do otherwise.”28

Warrior stressed that “there is no Kay County, Oklahoma, community

in a social, or societal, sense. We are not part of it except in the most

tangential legal sense. We just live there. There is no Ponca tribal govern-

ment. It is only named that.” In a prelude to his later “We Are Not Free”

speech, he repeated his earlier charge that, thanks to the iniquity of the

federal trust relationship, “we are among the poor, the powerless, the

inexperienced and the inarticulate.” In a similar refrain to his article on

the ﬁ ve types of Indian youth created by white society, Warrior admitted,

“I do not know how to solve the problem of poverty and I’m not even

sure that poverty is what we must solve—perhaps it is only a symptom.”

What he did offer was a powerful indictment of the powerful elites that

controlled the economy, saying that “of this I am certain, when a people

are powerless and their destiny is controlled by the powerful, whether

they be rich or poor, they live in ignorance and frustration because they

have been deprived of experience and responsibility as individuals and

as communities.”29

Warrior returned to his own Ponca heritage to reemphasize the point

that Indians themselves needed to be involved in any decision-making

processes. He declared that “in the old days the Ponca people lived on

the buffalo and we went out and hunted it. . . . [N]o one went out and

found the buffalo for us and no one organized our hunts for us. . . .

[W]e did that ourselves.” He emphasized that “white businessmen and

bureaucrats did not make the Ponca decisions, the Poncas made those

decisions and carried them out. . . . [T]here can not be responsibility un-

less people can make decisions and stand by them or fall by them.” He

added: “It is only when a community has real freedom that outside help

can be effective.”

Again drawing on his Workshops lessons, he reminded the audience

that “it was only when colonies in Africa and Asia had their freedom that

economic help from France and England became productive.” His mes-

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 241

sage was clear—without allowing tribes to determine their own fate, no

amount of federal money or programs would solve any of the problems

in Indian Country. In closing he addressed the conference organizers di-

rectly, congratulating them “on the great crusade you have undertaken”

but beseeching them “to in fact deal with the local community, not just

a physical or legal area, but a community of people.” He urged them to

“give our communities respect, the power to make choices about our

own destiny, and with a little help we will be able to join the United

States and live a decent fulﬁ lling life.”30

It was unfortunate that the conference organizers saw ﬁ t to tone down

Warrior’s rhetoric in the hope of avoiding scenes similar to those at

the AICCP. This is especially so when the speech raised such pertinent

points, which undoubtedly needed addressing, about the potential in-

effectiveness of the War on Poverty’s Community Action Program for

Indian communities. Warrior was undaunted, however, and continued

with these themes when he spoke before a predominantly white group

of students at an anthropological conference at Wayne State University,

Michigan, on February 4, 1966. In the year, which saw an increase in

race riots and anti–Vietnam War protests as well as the formation of the

Black Panther Party, the Wayne State speech is perhaps one of Warrior’s

most important speeches in terms of discerning something of the man

behind the rhetoric. Opening the ﬂ oor to questions from the audience

and displaying a sense of humor not obvious in his other speeches, War-

rior allowed his audience a glimpse of his personal demons.

Displaying a certain self-effacement also unnoticeable in previous

speeches, Warrior introduced himself by admitting to the audience that

“while I appear nervous doing my rambling it is because I am. I am not

used to seeing so many white people glaring at me all at once. It tends to

unnerve me a little bit.” Echoing his own description of the “angry young

nationalist” of his ﬁ ve types of Indians, he told them that “everyone tells

me I am a radical, you know, preaching for reforms, so that makes me

somehow or another, I know something about it.” In answer to this ap-

pointment he confessed: “All it is is I don’t like what is going on, so if that

is what a social movement is then possibly I might have an idea or two

in regards to that.”31

Showing few of the nerves he had confessed to but again displaying an

innate ability to challenge his audience, Warrior commented that most

Americans had a lack of self-knowledge that unnerved them “because

242 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

they don’t realize why they are but they are bugged about it.” This would

prove especially pertinent when he compared it to Indians’ acute aware-

ness of their history. He reminded his audience that Indians were not

immigrants who had arrived in America “looking for the good life or

the better way of life . . . because they didn’t like where they came from.”

Instead, he declared that “most American Indians living today (and there

are some around) remember that good life we had before these people

came here.” He echoed the concerns he had expressed at the poverty con-

ferences and told them that “what American means to us today is eco-

nomic exploitation and economic deprivation.” Indeed, “there are still

people among my tribe who remember that the soldiers didn’t leave our

community until 1925, when they had pretty well intimidated us to swal-

low Christianity.” It was these people, including his own grandparents,

who had shaped Warrior’s self-perception of his Indian identity and his

Ponca heritage. He drove his point home by telling them that “it is difﬁ -

cult to think of America and think nicely of it because they really haven’t

done us any favors.”32

He further emphasized this point by quoting Martin Luther King, Jr.’s

assessment of America as “the only country which was born in racial

hatred and genocide because America is the only country in the world

which embarked on an active policy to exterminate their native inhabit-

ants.” Brieﬂ y describing the struggle of various tribes to remain in their

traditional homelands in the face of this genocide, Warrior paid tribute

to Tecumseh, the nineteenth-century Shawnee leader who led an Indian

confederacy against American forces. Warrior called him “probably the

greatest American Indian [who] ever lived and died ﬁ ghting for democ-

racy and freedom. He kept telling these American cats about democracy

but they didn’t want to listen; freedom of people of a local community

to administer and decide their own lives.”33

Sharing with the audience some of his own tribal history, learned at

the feet of his grandparents, he told them that “when we moved to Okla-

homa we sued the government, won a court case, and with that money

we bought our reservation in Oklahoma.” On the issue of allotment he

questioned “how the government can legally do this I will never know—

open up our land to white settlers and give it out,” before repeating that

“this is a situation which isn’t very conducive to me looking very kindly

upon the neighboring white man.” Taking further the issue of illegal land

acquisition, federally, locally, and individually, he described how “there

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 243

were other policies of bribery by force and murder, that local and state

governments began to take the individual allotments away from the In-

dian. . . . [O]f course there was alcohol involved in a lot of this. This is

why many Indians were dispossessed of their land once more.” He also

told them that “this is presently going on in Oklahoma. It is going on in a

national level and reservations where the federal government passes this

whole law stating that certain reservations shall be (that horrible word

to us) ‘terminated.’”34

Warrior tried to place the issue of community and the Indian rela-

tionship to the land in terms his audience could understand. After tell-

ing them that “many American Indians . . . are living in the Holy Land,

land that has belonged to them for generations . . . similar to the rela-

tionship that Jews have to Israel,” he tackled the issue of Indian identity.

He described how “from the time one is born he knows what he is and

he knows his position in life; therefore he is not bugged about this verb

‘to be,’ what he is or hopes to be because he ‘is.’ He is already a complete

man, he knows his place in the world.” To emphasize the detrimental

effects that federal policies such as relocation were having on this self-

identity, he claimed that “the difﬁ culty is when he leaves that community

or his world and the reaction of the outside world does not respond to

his key that he is giving ‘this is me’ and he is completely ignored.”

Laying bare the differences between cultural and political sovereignty,

Warrior used this example to explain the different worldviews that he

discussed in his earlier banned speech. He told them that “people be-

gin to become concerned about how come American Indians don’t want

to compete or better themselves. How can they better themselves when

they already are what they are?” He reminded them that “there are still

Indian people who are still around who were involved in the last re-

bellions to stop this and to maintain our own personal good life.” He

took this point further, claiming that “many [of these tribes] still con-

sider the United States as invaders and also liars and not holding up

their word. Others are just completely frustrated by the results they have

received by the American way,” such as removal, allotment, relocation,

and termination.35

Warrior then returned to another earlier theme of perceived Indian

unity or pan-Indianism and complained: “Also they are always throwing

this bit ‘Why don’t the Indians unify? Unity is their strength’ and all this

jazz.” He reiterated his earlier point that “there are tremendous differ-

244 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

ences in American Indians. Not only are they scattered all over the coun-

try, but we live in a different physical world, a different social world, a

different historical environment.” He went on to describe how “there re-

ally is, other than being called ‘American Indians,’ there is really no thing

to be uniﬁ ed about. We speak different languages, we have different so-

cial customs, we have different forms of tribal government, and this is

very difﬁ cult to bring American Indians together.” He told the audience

how the “typical American” had “created an American Indian.” He noted

that “to them the American Indian is dead, there is no such thing, they

only appear in movies, in television . . . and sometimes it disturbs me a

little bit because I am not that.” He reminded them, however, that “I am

me, tribe warrior, a man of the world. . . . I have no questions about what

I am or what I will be because I am me.”36

Turning to the problems that the bloated bureaucracy of the BIA

brought to Indian Country, Warrior informed the audience that “the Bu-

reau’s sole purpose is to assimilate a fade-in of the American Indian into

the general American scene.” He touched on education, which at this

point had become a focal point of the NIYC’s grassroots campaigning

on reservations and in tribal communities, telling them that “we have

federal government boarding schools designed to do this. . . . [P]ublic

schools preach to the Indian every day that he is a slob.” Highlighting

the effect that this was having on Indian families, he said that “the kid

comes back and many times he begins to hate his parents. He doesn’t

like what they are and it is because he is told that.” He told them that “we

have some Indian schools where kids are taken out of their homes at age

six, and they never see their parents again until they leave the twelfth

grade, then they are allowed home,” before adding caustically that “this

is civilization.”37

Far from showing any nerves, Warrior was now in full ﬂ ow and re-

turned to his ﬁ ve types of Indians, expounding on his previous deﬁ ni-

tions for his new audience. Describing the “sellouts,” he asked the audi-

ence, “Do you know who these people are? They are the employees of

the Bureau of Indian Affairs, they are the teachers in Indian schools, they

are the go-betweens between the federal government and the American

Indian.” Referring to those tribal leaders he castigated later in the speech

and the detrimental effect that federal policies had on Indian self-aware-

ness to the extent of often creating self-loathing, he told the audience that

“these are the ones who have continually sold us out since God knows

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 245

when, and they continue to sell us out because they hate what we are be-

cause what we are is them.” He discussed the “phony Indian” as someone

who “doesn’t know what an Indian is, or what a Ponca, or Sioux, Osage

or a Cherokee is, so therefore he goes about taking all these keys from

American society as to how an Indian should act.” He described him as

the “type if you are ever around urban areas where there are Indians,

who will wear a feather, that will say ‘How’ or ‘Ugh,’ and act stereotype

Indian, you know, what an Indian is supposed to act like.”38

He berated the “little brown American” as “the ones who go around

pledging allegiance. You could play the ﬁ rst chord of the Star Spangled

Banner and they will jump to attention.” Laying the blame for this type

squarely at the door of white educators, he complained that “these are the

results of the Bureau of Indian Affairs schools because all they amount

to is white man factories.” He said, “You send in tribal-type Indians and

out the other side comes little brown Americans, scrubbed and washed,

hair combed, doing what the middle class does.” Unfortunately for this

type, however, “little does he realize he is despised by the white middle

class, but he still tries to get along with them.”39

Referring to the “angry nationalists,” Warrior described them as “the

type who doesn’t like any of the other types that I mentioned and doesn’t

like what America has done to his people.” He noted that “generally he

is the college-educated Indian. . . . [Y]ou have him going around rais-

ing hell all over the country but he cannot convey this back to his own

tribe or his own people.” Warrior showed the paradox of his own situ-

ation here, for while he readily identiﬁ ed with the former category of

“college educated hell raiser,” he was also speaking disapprovingly from

a position of experience. Beyond his own Ponca people, one Cherokee

tribal elder had already described him as someone who may not have

the power of the medicine way, “but he knows how to talk to those who

do have the power and can’t express it in a modern way. Some of the

young Indians don’t know how the old Indians feel. He knows. . . . He

understands the tribal ways. I mean he really feels it.”40 As someone so

deeply immersed in his own tribal culture to the point that he was Ponca

before anything else, Warrior was saddened by those who didn’t under-

stand their tribal ways. He complained that “it is a very frustrating thing

but there are more and more of these coming about.” But he saw a time

when this problem would be resolved, stating that “looking to the fu-

ture I see an alliance between these young educated nationalists with

246 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

the old traditionalists who are still very nationalistic in their own think-

ing.” Warning the audience that this alliance would not be pleasant for

white America, he declared that “when this alliance comes about, there

are several towns in this country that had better look out with the pres-

ent situation because it is likely to make the Mau Mau of Africa look like

a Sunday school meeting.”41

Warrior went on to discuss the American Indian Chicago Conference

of 1961 and the birth of the NIYC. Again making a clear delineation be-

tween tribal elders and leaders, he referred to the conference as a gather-

ing of “all these tribal ﬁ nks.” He described it as a “bad meeting,” claiming

that “it was sickening to see American Indians just get up and tell obvi-

ous lies about how well the federal government was treating them, what

fantastic and magniﬁ cent things the federal government were doing for

us.” He told them that “it got to the end where we (I and about 20 others

. . .) couldn’t hack it any longer, we were completely disgusted with it. We

began having meetings of our own between sessions, drafting statements

and resolutions and said we were going to try to work within that struc-

ture.” However, “every time we tried to do it, we stood up and worked

within that structure, our own kind stood up and screamed at us, ‘radi-

cals! Possibly Communists are inﬁ ltrating us! Ignore these young foolish

kids. They really don’t know what they are doing.’” He noted that “I was

pretty sorry of my own kind of people, they had degenerated to such a

level where they would do that.” The group “met in Gallup in 1961 and we

formed the National Indian Youth Council, designed to agitate and bring

about whatever social reform, economic reform, governmental legisla-

tive reform it could bring about within American Indian Affairs.”42

Warrior also hinted at conﬂ icts within the new organization, conﬂ icts

that had reared their heads again more recently. He confessed that “I

was one of them who advocated that, you know—violence. I’m not so

sure I have changed my mind.” Conversely, “there were the more mod-

erate ones who said ‘let’s try for some national publicity and maybe the

conscience of America will do something about this. Let’s don’t do any-

thing harsh yet.’” Indeed, by 1966 internal tension within the NIYC had

threatened to cause the movement to implode. Warrior regularly labeled

his opponents within the NIYC as “ﬁ nks” and had to be coerced into ac-

cepting the presidency of the organization in 1966 rather than actually

leaving it.43 Implying that he may indeed have been a radical, even within

the NIYC, he told them that “since that time at all of our meetings I still

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 247

said ‘we are doing the wrong thing (I still believe since then),’ because I

don’t believe you can work within the structure of America for change.”

He told them that “I believe before change comes about in the American

Indian situation, American itself has to change.”44

This belief formed the bedrock of Warrior’s absolute conviction that

if America did not change, then students and Indians would attempt

to change it themselves. He sensed that his own frustration was merely

the tip of the iceberg in relation to the frustration of the generation that

would follow his. As often as he challenged policy makers to recognize

the rights of tribal communities to solve their own problems, he had little

faith that he would see the day this recognition came. His rhetoric was

often more militant than activism, and the ﬁ sh-ins of 1964 showed that

Warrior was quite comfortable with direct action. Warrior’s greatest frus-

tration, however, was his sense of his own relative inability to foster these

changes immediately. Not for the ﬁ rst time, or the last, he admitted, “How

this is done, I haven’t ﬁ gured this out yet and I doubt if I ever will.”

This inability haunted him as he was forced to watch the continual

breakdown of tribal communities through this cycle of perpetuating

misery, a situation most close to his heart. Warrior told them that “it is

getting worse, the social breakdown is getting fantastic, you have situa-

tions where sons will come in drunk and slap their mothers—unheard

of in tribal societies.” He emphasized how communities and the people

within them saw so little value within themselves that they were turn-

ing to “unconscious suicide where people really think within themselves

‘Man, life ain’t worth it. Best we should stay drunk and die or best we

should kill each other than have to live the life we have to live today.’”

Acknowledging his own struggle with alcoholism and despair at the fu-

ture of Indian Country, he confessed, “I am one of them but I am not at

suicide point.”

Warrior was certain that “if the situation is going to stay the same,

then the best American Indians should have to die rather than live in

the environment and social structure that they are presently in.” In his

worst moments he foresaw that despite his constant demand for change

and calls to arms of his fellow Indian youth, the very best future they

faced within the current status quo was a slow and steady death by al-

coholism. There would be no other escape from the devastating pov-

erty that currently plagued tribal communities, and so bad was that pov-

erty that death was potentially preferable. He admitted that “this may

248 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

sound extreme but I am sure many of you here if maybe you have come

from ethnic minorities will think about it, that this is true.”46 The need

for change, and drastic change at that, was devastatingly apparent with

every word he uttered.

Again, though, he admitted that he hadn’t “the vaguest idea” about

how to solve these problems. Warrior did, however, envisage three pos-

sible outcomes for tribal dynamics in the white world if the status quo

remained the same. The ﬁ rst was that they would stay with the status

quo, which would lead to Indians getting “bred out, our blood diluted,

then there wouldn’t be any American Indian problem.” The second op-

tion was the formation of “Mau Mau societies among the tribes, a very

radical, violent type of societies [that] are beginning to come about.”

Referring to an earlier point that the government essentially ignored na-

tionalistic tribal governments, he said that “the government knows of

these things and how they don’t do anything about them is beyond me!”

The third option was one that he suggested would be the most econom-

ically devastating for the tribes while probably the most communally

beneﬁ cial. He foresaw tribes “further withdraw[ing] from the American

scene. A tribe will become more cohesive and the relationship with the

outside world will be less and less . . . and this has happened before in

American Indian societies.”47

He also envisioned a time when “American Indians get their way

[and] they are going to turn this society over and stomp on it and won-

der about things later.” Displaying a pragmatism not always evident in

his speeches, he urged that “we should sit down, look objectively at the

American situation and somehow or other try to do something about

this, rather than see America go down in utter chaos.”48 While he pre-

dicted that violence would ensue without change and occasionally saw

violence as a necessary facilitator of change, he did not view violence as

an alternative to change. Changing the system rather than destroying it

was the ultimate goal for Warrior, even if he readily admitted that he did

not have the answers on how exactly the system should be changed.

On February 2, 1967, he presented what is possibly his most power-

ful, impassioned, and iconic testimony on the connection between the

material and spiritual paucity of American Indians. Testifying before the

President’s National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty in Mem-

phis, Tennessee, Warrior made education for American Indians a cen-

tral theme of his speech. At this point he saw deﬁ nite causal links be-

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 249

tween poverty, ethnicity, and education. He was also helping to organize

the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s (SCLC) Poor People’s

Campaign March on Washington for the following year. Warrior was

also working for Dr. Murray Wax as a researcher into the education

standards of Oklahoma’s rural and urban Cherokee Indian children and

was a guest lecturer at the Workshops on American Indian Affairs in

Boulder.

The NIYC, in conjunction with United Scholarship Services (USS),

also actively focused on education as the means through which Indian

Country could generate new leaders and thinkers. Warrior was actively

involved in this program through the Upward Bound program the USS

operated. His rhetoric had also evolved to the point whereby he ﬁ nally

offered solutions as to how change should come about, not through vio-

lence or smashing the system, although he did still warn that these were

viable options, but through trusting Indian tribal communities to take

back control of their lives. Without advocating for the abolition of the

BIA or the federal trust relationship, Warrior was determined that the

government should take the rare step of asking Indians how they en-

visaged rectifying the problems their communities faced. He advocated

tribal self-determination through the recognition of cultural and politi-

cal sovereignty in the true sense of the word, with the community, and

not the BIA, determining what was best for the community.

He opened the speech with an enlightening discussion of the concepts

of poverty and freedom. Drawing on the personal experiences and rich

cultural and communal heritage of himself and his peers, he told the

conference that “most members of the National Indian Youth Council

can remember when we . . . spent many hours at the feet of our grandfa-

thers listening to stories of the time when the Indians were a great people,

when we were free, when we were rich, when we lived the good life.” He

acknowledged that “it was only recently that we realized that there was

surely great material depravation in those days, but that our old people

felt rich because they were free.” Rather than material wealth, his ances-

tors were “rich in things of the spirit” compared to the present situation,

when generations of federal administration meant that “if there is one

thing that characterizes Indian life today it is poverty of the spirit.” He

declared that this poverty of the spirit was because “we are not free. We

do not make choices. Our choices are made for us. We are the poor.”

He claimed that “for those of us who live on reservations these choices

250 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

and decisions are made by federal administrators, bureaucrats, and their

‘yes men,’ euphemistically called tribal governments.” Urban and non-

reservation Indians “have our lives controlled by local white power elites.

We have many rulers. They are called social workers, ‘cops,’ school teach-

ers, churches, etc. and now OEO [Ofﬁ ce of Economic Opportunity] em-

ployees.” He also contemplated the possibility that “perhaps it is also true

that our lack of reasonable choices, our lack of freedoms, our poverty

of spirit is not unconnected with material poverty.”49 In a tirade against

these “rulers” he complained that “we are rarely accorded respect as fel-

low human beings. Our children come home from school to us with

shame in their hearts and a sneer on their lips for their home and their

parents.” This was a concept that was now much more personal to War-

rior as the father of two young daughters. While he was trying to ensure

they were as deeply immersed in his Ponca culture as he was, introducing

them into the powwow arena at very early ages, he also worried for their

future upbringing.

He also told the conference that the War on Poverty was not work-

ing in Indian communities because the status quo of bureaucratic self-

interest had not been broken. He identiﬁ ed “alliances in Indian areas

between federal administrators and local elites, where ‘everybody being

satisﬁ ed’ means the people who count, and the Indian or poor does not

count.” This was reminiscent of his previous criticism of the concept

of community and status of power within his own community in Kay

County, Oklahoma. He berated the administrators and social workers

who classiﬁ ed Indian children as “deprived,” saying “exactly what they

are deprived of seems to be unstated. We give our children love, warmth,

and respect in our homes and the qualities necessary to be a warm hu-

man being.” He countered that “perhaps they get into trouble as teenag-

ers because we give them too much warmth, love, passion, and respect.

Perhaps they have trouble reconciling themselves to being a number on

an IBM card.”50

Warrior noted that “there is a whole generation of Indian children . . .

who look to their relatives, my generation, and my father’s, to see if they

are worthy people.” However, he deplored the continued inherent racism

of the education system toward Indians, claiming that “they judge wor-

thiness as competence, and competence as worthiness. And I am afraid

me and my fathers do not fare well in the light of this situation and judg-

ment.” Warrior was again speaking from ﬁ rsthand experience of a system

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 251

in which “I participated in functions to the greatest extent of which I was

permitted—which wasn’t much due to the dominant attitude and also

my background of limited resources. You knew you didn’t ﬁ t. Economi-

cally you didn’t ﬁ t. Socially you didn’t ﬁ t.”51 He told the conference that

the very future of Indian communities was at stake unless the system

changed because “for the sake of our children, for the sake of the spiri-

tual and material well being of our total community we must be able to

demonstrate competence to ourselves.” The ability to demonstrate this

competence was predicated by certain essential conditions, according to

Warrior. He stressed that the same issues of choice and opportunity for

the individual that he had ﬁ rst raised in “Time for Indian Action” were

also essential for tribal communities. Most importantly, whereas he had

previously suggested only alternatives, he now provided answers.52

He demanded that “we must be free men and exercise free choices. We

must make decisions about our own destinies. We must be able to learn

and proﬁ t by our own mistakes. We must be free in the most literal sense

of the word.” He told the audience that “programs must be Indian cre-

ations, Indian choices, Indian experiences because only then will Indians

understand why a program failed and not blame themselves for some

personal inadequacy.” He pointed out that “a better program built upon

the failure of an old program is the path of progress. But to achieve this

experience, competence, worthiness, sense of achievement and the resul-

tant material prosperity Indians must have the responsibility in the ul-

timate sense of the word.” He declared that “freedom and responsibility

are different sides of the same coin and there can be no freedom without

complete responsibility.” He deﬁ ned this responsibility as “not the ﬁ c-

tional responsibility and democracy of passive consumers of programs:

programs which emanate from and whose responsibility for success rests

in the hands of outsiders—be they federal administrators or local white

elitist groups. . . . [T]he real solution to poverty is encouraging the com-

petence of the community as a whole.”53

He closed the speech by informing the conference that the “National

Indian Youth Council recommends for ‘openers’ that to really give these

people ‘the poor, the dispossessed, the Indians,’ complete freedom and

responsibility is to . . . let the poor decide for once what is best for them-

selves.” He admitted that “of course we realize within the present struc-

ture this is not possible. So we further recommend that another avenue

of thought be tried, such as junking the present structure and creating an-

252 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

other,” before repeating his assertion that continuing with existing fed-

eral Indian policy would be simply “re-inforcing [sic] and strengthening

the ills that are implicit in the very structure of that [Indian] society.”54

Warrior’s effectiveness was in drawing people’s attention to the ur-

gency with which Indians needed the freedom to determine their own

fates. His speeches rang with the conviction that community was essen-

tial to self-identity and that the self-conﬁ dence gained from this self-

identity was essential to the community. He could not force people to

take action, but he could force them to listen. While his rhetoric was

occasionally misguided, such as his stereotyping of the Irish and Jewish

peoples, his message could never be misunderstood. This rhetoric, often

as critical of Indians as it was of whites, did reﬂ ect Warrior’s years of ex-

perience attempting to work within and outside the system he so desper-

ately wanted to change. This experience carried him from accepting the

presidency of the SRIYC in 1961 and addressing Regional Indian Youth

Conferences in 1964 to the 1967 President’s National Advisory Commis-

sion on Rural Poverty via ﬁ sh-ins, the USS, education drives, Commu-

nity Action Programs, as well as his academic life in just six short years.

As his experience grew, his subject matter also expanded. Warrior began

his public speaking “career” by simply calling for his fellow Indian stu-

dents to discover the ﬁ ght within themselves. His subsequent involve-

ment in government programs exposed him to the inadequacy of federal

aid for Indian communities. It also reinforced his opinion of American

society’s blatant lack of understanding of the Indian worldview. By the

time of his death Warrior was calling for Indian tribes to take on the

mantle of responsibility and force the change that was needed for them

to survive and prosper economically, politically, and, most importantly,

as communities.

After the ﬁ sh-ins of 1964 Warrior’s speeches began to warn people of

the ﬁ restorm that was to come if change did not happen. While he con-

tinued to protest, “Do I know what to do? No, I guess not. If I had an

answer it would be on the tip of my tongue. But it’s not,” he did try to

effect change himself, and his words were also at least acknowledged,

if not acted on, by those in power. In August 1967, six months after his

Memphis speech, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert Bennett told

Warrior and his fellow NIYC members that “I do not consider it becom-

ing to an Indian image, or beneﬁ cial to the Indian’s future, to indulge

in chronic criticism without offering realistic constructive suggestions

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 253

for improvement.” Bennett, an Oneida Indian and long-time BIA opera-

tive, later admitted, however, that “I bridled at his criticism, and ques-

tioned his tactics, but of his basic philosophy I could ﬁ nd no argument.”

Whether the criticism at which Bennett bridled was that of his complic-

ity in federal Indian policy, his position as a government employee, or

his categorization by Warrior as an Indian “sellout,” he did not say.55 In

April 1968, just three months before he died, Warrior was following his

own words and pushing his Ponca community into taking direct force-

ful action to help itself. He launched a voter drive to place a Ponca tribal

member on the board of the White Eagle School to enable the school to

remain open and community organized rather than having its students

bussed to nearby white public schools.56

As much as Bennett bemoaned the constant “chronic criticism” that

Warrior offered in his speeches, many of his words proved to be star-

tlingly prescient. Indeed, the year after his death in 1968 saw the Indians

of All Tribes occupy Alcatraz Island in 1969. The subsequent mass pro-

tests, including the infamous Siege at Wounded Knee in 1972, led by the

American Indian Movement, formed in late 1968, generated worldwide

publicity, as the Indian youth attempted to “smash the system,” as he had

said they would. His call for an end to the “termination” policy was ﬁ nally

answered by President Johnson in his “The Forgotten American” speech

of March 1968, shortly before Warrior died. The full repudiation of ex-

isting federal Indian policy did not take effect, however, until President

Nixon’s “Special Message on Indian Affairs,” delivered on July 8, 1970.

Nixon, whose advisors had been inspired by Warrior’s words, declared

that “self-determination without termination” was to be his administra-

tion’s policy toward the Indians.57 Finally, the call for tribal communities

to ﬁ nd their own path toward future stability was being heeded.

Upon his death in July 1968, Warrior’s long-time friend and NIYC co-

founder, Mel Thom, described him as “a prominent and controversial

leader since 1961.” While he always attempted to shrug off the mantle

of leader, Warrior would have embraced the epitaph of “prominent and

controversial.” His intention, as Browning Pipestem recalled, was al-

ways “to take that negative image of Indians and shove it down people’s

throats.” Warrior managed to do that and much, much more through his

speeches and articles. He used his Ponca identity and cultural knowledge

to draw parallels between different tribal cultures. He inspired many

contemporary and future leaders of those tribal cultures to strive for

254 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

self-determination through his blistering calls to arms. He used his abso-

lute belief in the underlying strength and importance of the knowledge

that tribal elders had of their traditional cultures to stress their essential

necessity to the survival of all tribal communities. “Red Power” may have

been a slogan Warrior and Thom adopted “because we thought it was

kind of cute,” but it also epitomized one of the most militant and out-

spoken and inspirational cultural activists of his generation.58

notes

1. For a more thorough examination of the changes taking place in America

during the 1960s see Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New

York: Bantam Books, 1987) and Terry H. Anderson, The Movement and the Six-

ties (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). Thomas Clarkin’s Federal Indian

Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations (Albuquerque: University of

New Mexico Press, 2001) gives a detailed account of the world of Indian affairs

during this era. For an overview of the Red Power movement see Stan Steiner,

The New Indians (New York: Dell, 1968). Steiner and Alvin Josephy (Red Power

[New York: American Heritage Press, 1971]) also discuss the origins of “Red

Power” as a slogan and the NIYC’s use of “Red Muslims” as a soubriquet before

this.

2. James Howard, “The Pan-Indian Culture of Oklahoma,” Scientiﬁ c Monthly,

November 1955, 215–20; Robert Thomas, “Pan Indianism,” Indian Progress, no. 7,

July 21, 1962, 3.

3. Daniel M. Cobb offers a detailed analysis of cold war rhetoric and the in-

ﬂ uence of global decolonization efforts upon Native American activists during

the civil rights era in his recent text Native Activism in Cold War America: The

Struggle for Sovereignty (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008). Howard’s

seminal 1955 essay, “Pan-Indian Culture of Oklahoma,” was one of the earliest at-

tempts to deﬁ ne the concept, labeling powwows as pan-Indian affairs with little

true resemblance to individual tribal culture remaining. Robert Thomas’s 1965

essay, “Pan-Indianism,” published in the Midcontinent American Studies Journal

6, no. 2 (1965): 75–83, was an attempt at a reclariﬁ cation of the term to include

political as well as cultural motifs.

4. June 1994 interview between Della Warrior and Robert Warrior, copy in

author’s possession. The Tail Dancer is a prestigious society ofﬁ ce only held by

the most respected dancers from within the tribe.

5. December 1994 interview between Hank Adams and Robert Warrior, copy

in author’s possession.

6. Rosalie Wax, “A Brief History and Analysis of the Workshops on American

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 255

Indian Affairs Conducted for American Indian College Students, 1956–1960,” in

author’s possession.

7. National Indian Youth Council Papers, Box 1, Folder 1, Center for South-

west Research Collection, University of New Mexico.

8. Clyde Warrior, “Time for Indian Action,” American Indian Mission and

Ministry Collection, National Council of the Episcopal Church, New York, em-

phasis added.

9. Warrior, “Time for Indian Action.” The SDS was a student activist move-

ment that came to represent the New Left student movement in the 1960s. The

statement was adopted at the organization’s ﬁ rst convention in 1962. More infor-

mation is available about this group in Anderson, The Movement.

10. Warrior, “Time for Indian Action.”

11. Clyde Warrior, “Which One Are You?” ABC: Americans Before Columbus 1

(December 1964): 1, 3.

12. Robert Allen Warrior and Paul Chaat Smith, Like a Hurricane (New York:

New Press, 1996), 41.

13. Warrior, “Which One Are You?”

14. Warrior, “Which One Are You?” Mel Thom’s address, “A Greater Indian

America,” can be found in Josephy, Red Power, 53–59.

15. Clyde Warrior, “How Should an Indian Act?” ABC: Americans Before Co-

lumbus 1 (January 1965): 1.

16. Warrior, “How Should an Indian Act?”

17. Warrior, “How Should an Indian Act?”

18. Warrior, “How Should an Indian Act?”

19. Warrior, “How Should an Indian Act?” See also Winston Churchill, The

Story of My Early Life: A Roving Commission (London: Thornton Butterworth,

1930), 60.

20. Bradley M. Shreve, “Red Power Rising: The National Indian Youth Coun-

cil and the Origins of Intertribal Activism,” PhD diss., University of New Mexico,

2008, 216. For more information on Johnson’s War on Poverty see David Zaref-

sky, President Johnson’s War on Poverty (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press,

2005). Excerpts from Thom’s speech are reprinted with a contextual explanation

in Josephy, Red Power. Clyde Warrior, “Poverty, Community, and Power,” New

University Thought 4 (Summer 1965): 5–10, quote on 5. This is part of the speech

that Warrior was “allowed” to give.

21. McNamara was one of the prime architects of the Vietnam War and the in-

creased troop presence in South Vietnam. In the context of this speech Warrior

appears to be referring to the ineffectiveness of McNamara’s military program

as well as alluding to Indian Country as being occupied by the government. Also

see Donald Fixico, Termination and Relocation: Federal Indian Policy, 1945–1960

(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990) for a discussion of the

256 american indian quarterly/spring 2010/vol. 34, no. 2

problems faced by relocated Indians. The issue of domestic colonialism is cov-

ered extensively in Cobb, Native Activism.

22. Warrior, “Poverty, Community, and Power.”

23. Warrior, “Poverty, Community, and Power,” 6. For the full text of John-

son’s “Great Society” speech see http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/docu

ments/great.html. Also see Zarefsky, President Johnson’s War on Poverty.

24. Warrior, “Poverty, Community, and Power,” 7.

25. Warrior, “Poverty, Community, and Power,” 7.

26. Warrior, “Poverty, Community, and Power,” 8.

27. Warrior, “Poverty, Community, and Power,” 8.

28. Warrior, “Poverty, Community, and Power,” 8.

29. Warrior, “Poverty, Community, and Power,” 8.

30. Warrior, “Poverty, Community, and Power,” 9. Odd Arne Westad, The

Global Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) gives a fas-

cinating account of the role of African nations during the cold war era and the

impact of the cold war on the decolonization efforts of many African nations.

31. Clyde Warrior, “Lecture on Social Movements,” Wayne State University,

February 4, 1966, transcript in author’s possession.

32. Warrior, lecture.

33. Warrior, lecture.

34. Warrior, lecture. For more information on the allotment of Ponca lands

see Tom Hagan, Taking Indian Lands (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,

2003). For information on the government’s termination policy see Kenneth

Philp, Termination Revisited (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999); and

Fixico, Termination and Relocation.

35. Warrior, lecture.

36. Warrior, lecture.

37. Warrior, lecture.

38. Warrior, lecture.

39. Warrior, lecture.

40. Steiner, The New Indians, 69, emphasis in original.

41. Warrior, lecture. The Mau Mau were a militant African nationalist move-

ment active in Kenya during the 1950s whose main aim was to remove British

rule and European settlers from the country.

42. Warrior, lecture.

43. Further insight into the internal tensions within the NIYC at this time can

be found in Bradley Glenn Shreves’s PhD dissertation, “Red Power Rising: The

National Indian Youth Council and the Origins of Intertribal Activism,” Univer-

sity of New Mexico, 2008.

44. Warrior, lecture.

45. Warrior, lecture.

McKenzie-Jones: “We are among the poor” 257

46. Warrior, lecture.

47. Warrior, lecture.

48. Warrior, lecture.

49. Clyde Warrior, “We Are Not Free,” ABC: Americans Before Columbus, May

1967, 4. This speech is also reprinted with a brief introduction in Josephy, Red

Power.

50. Warrior, “We Are Not Free.”

51. Clyde Warrior, autobiographical essay, NIYC Collection, Box 5, Folder 3,

Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico.

52. Warrior, “We Are Not Free.”

53. Warrior, “We Are Not Free.”

54. Warrior, “We Are Not Free,” emphasis added.

55. “Militant, Young Indian Leader Dies,” Navajo Times, September 5, 1968;

Charles T. Powers, “Bitter Look at the Uses of Red Power,” Kansas City Star, 1968.

56. Charles E. Heerman, “The Ponca: A People in the Process of Becoming,”

Journal of American Indian Education 14 (May 1975): 23–31.

57. There had been an earlier attempt to occupy Alcatraz in 1965, but it was

neither as successful nor as well publicized as the 1969 occupation.

58. Warrior and Smith, Like a Hurricane, 41; “Militant, Young Indian Leader

Dies.”

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Cobb offers a detailed analysis of cold war rhetoric and the infl uence of global decolonization efforts upon Native American activists during the civil rights era in his recent text Native Activism in Cold War America: The Struggle for Sovereignty

Jan 1965
75-83

M Daniel

Daniel M. Cobb offers a detailed analysis of cold war rhetoric and the infl uence of global decolonization efforts upon Native American activists during the civil rights era in his recent text Native Activism in Cold War America: The Struggle for Sovereignty (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008). Howard's seminal 1955 essay, "Pan-Indian Culture of Oklahoma," was one of the earliest attempts to defi ne the concept, labeling powwows as pan-Indian affairs with little true resemblance to individual tribal culture remaining. Robert Thomas's 1965 essay, "Pan-Indianism," published in the Midcontinent American Studies Journal 6, no. 2 (1965): 75-83, was an attempt at a reclarifi cation of the term to include political as well as cultural motifs.

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The SDS was a student activist movement that came to represent the New Left student movement in the 1960s. The statement was adopted at the organization's fi rst convention in 1962. More information is available about this group in Anderson, The Movement. 10. Warrior, "Time for Indian Action

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Warrior

Warrior, "Time for Indian Action." The SDS was a student activist movement that came to represent the New Left student movement in the 1960s. The statement was adopted at the organization's fi rst convention in 1962. More information is available about this group in Anderson, The Movement. 10. Warrior, "Time for Indian Action." 11. Clyde Warrior, "Which One Are You?" ABC: Americans Before Columbus 1 (December 1964): 1, 3.

Which One Are You?" 14. Warrior

Jan 1996
53-59

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How Should an Indian Act?" 17. Warrior

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Clyde Warrior

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Excerpts from Thom's speech are reprinted with a contextual explanation in Josephy, Red Power. Clyde Warrior, "Poverty, Community, and Power

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5-10

M Bradley
Shreve

Bradley M. Shreve, "Red Power Rising: The National Indian Youth Council and the Origins of Intertribal Activism," PhD diss., University of New Mexico, 2008, 216. For more information on Johnson's War on Poverty see David Zarefsky, President Johnson's War on Poverty (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005). Excerpts from Thom's speech are reprinted with a contextual explanation in Josephy, Red Power. Clyde Warrior, "Poverty, Community, and Power," New University Thought 4 (Summer 1965): 5-10, quote on 5. This is part of the speech that Warrior was "allowed" to give.

) gives a fascinating account of the role of African nations during the cold war era and the impact of the cold war on the decolonization efforts of many African nations. 31. Clyde Warrior

Jan 1966
1945-1960

McNamara was one of the prime architects of the Vietnam War and the increased troop presence in South Vietnam. In the context of this speech Warrior appears to be referring to the ineffectiveness of McNamara's military program as well as alluding to Indian Country as being occupied by the government. Also see Donald Fixico, Termination and Relocation: Federal Indian Policy, 1945-1960 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990) for a discussion of the problems faced by relocated Indians. The issue of domestic colonialism is covered extensively in Cobb, Native Activism. 22. Warrior, "Poverty, Community, and Power." 23. Warrior, "Poverty, Community, and Power," 6. For the full text of Johnson's "Great Society" speech see http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/docu ments/great.html. Also see Zarefsky, President Johnson's War on Poverty. 24. Warrior, "Poverty, Community, and Power," 7. 25. Warrior, "Poverty, Community, and Power," 7. 26. Warrior, "Poverty, Community, and Power," 8. 27. Warrior, "Poverty, Community, and Power," 8. 28. Warrior, "Poverty, Community, and Power," 8. 29. Warrior, "Poverty, Community, and Power," 8. 30. Warrior, "Poverty, Community, and Power," 9. Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) gives a fascinating account of the role of African nations during the cold war era and the impact of the cold war on the decolonization efforts of many African nations. 31. Clyde Warrior, "Lecture on Social Movements," Wayne State University, February 4, 1966, transcript in author's possession. 32. Warrior, lecture. 33. Warrior, lecture.

“We are among the poor, the powerless, the inexperienced and the inarticulate”: Clyde Warrior’s Campaign for a “Greater Indian America”

Abstract and Figures

Recommended publications

Aharon Appelfeld in Conversation with Nili Gold: University of Pennsylvania, October 2011

King Takes a Radical Stand, 1967–8

Understanding Social Movements

The New Politics of Resistance