| Abbreviation | NAC |
|---|---|
| Predecessor | Native American Committee of the American Indian Center of Chicago |
| Formation | 1970 |
| Founded at | Chicago, Illinois |
| Dissolved | 1986 |
| Type | educational organization |
| Legal status | defunct |
| Purpose | education, Native American civil rights, Native American self-determination |
Region | US Midwest |
Key people | Faith Smith |
Main organ | Red Letter |
| Secessions | Chicago Indian Village |
The Native American Committee (NAC) was an educational group in Chicago, Illinois, that created life-long learning programs and institutions for Native Americans. It was most notable for founding the Native American Educational Services College, the only institution of higher learning in an urban setting led by and serving Native Americans. [1]
In the mid twentieth century, the Native American population of Chicago grew as a results of the US government's Indian termination policy and Indian Relocation Act of 1956, which incentivized Native Americans to relocated to urban centers. [2] By 1969 Chicago was one of seven American cities with more than 10,000 Native American citizens. [3] In 1953, the Native American population founded the American Indian Center (AIC) of Chicago to provide social services and opportunities, youth and senior programs, and cultural and educational programs for the growing native population. [4]
In 1969, a group took shape within the AIC inspired by and to support the Occupation of Alcatraz, the two-year protest occupation of Alcatraz Island by Native Americans. Taking the name Native American Committee (NAC), the group wanted the AIC both to establish more institutional and expansive educational offerings and to use more confrontational, direct-action tactics. [5] Founding NAC members included Dennis Harper, Robert V. Dumont, Jr., William Whitehead, Nancy Dumont, Verdaine Farmilant, and Faith Smith, an assistant to long-time AIC director Robert Rietz. [6] In 1991, Faith Smith described the cultural divide that had formed within the AIC as herself and others wanting to re-focus AIC on "poverty and the problems of Indians on the streets," while many of the existing members continued to feel that “the center ought to be more of a middle-classy sort of thing, a social center or that sort of stuff." [7] NAC member Helen Whitehead (Ho-Chunk-Ojibwe) described NAC's goal for Native American students as starting “at the time they're very young and to build a positive self-image." [8]
In 1970, NAC incorporated as an independent organization in Illinois, although many members continued also to work at or belong to the AIC. [9]
The same year, a Native American housing protest began near Chicago Cubs home stadium, Wrigley Field, when a Menominee woman, Carol Warrington, a mother of six, began a rent strike for repairs to her apartment. On May 5, 1970, her landlord evicted Warrington's family, and the NAC mounted a public protest. Borrowing a ceremonial teepee from the AIC, NAC activists took up residence next to the baseball stadium and successfully drew attention to Warrington's cause and to the poor living conditions for many Native American Chicagoans. [10] The NAC protest group soon split. Many AIC members urged the group to consider the short protest a success and end it. [10] A core group of NAC members led by Steve Fastwolf left the group to re-focus on its educational mission. Michael Chosa led the remaining campers out of NAC under the new name Chicago Indian Village (CIV) in a protest that continued in various locations until 1972. [6]
In 1971, NAC successfully founded its first major initiative, the Little Big Horn School. A collaboration with Chicago Public Schools, the high school addressed the needs of Native American high school students. With a federal grant of $244,000, five teachers at the Little Big Horn School taught eighty high school students and twenty preschool students. The NAC followed up the success in 1973 with the O-Wai-Ya-Wa Elementary School program. In 1974, Smith and NAC founded and Smith became the president of the Native American Educational Services College (NAES College), the only urban institution of higher learning managed by and serving Native Americans. [11] [5] The college graduated more than three hundred students before discontinuing classes in 2005. [12]
The American Indian Movement (AIM) is an American Indian grassroots movement which was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 1968, initially centered in urban areas in order to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police brutality against American Indians. AIM soon widened its focus from urban issues to many Indigenous Tribal issues that American Indian groups have faced due to settler colonialism in the Americas. These issues have included treaty rights, high rates of unemployment, the lack of American Indian subjects in education, and the preservation of Indigenous cultures.
Chief Illiniwek was the mascot of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), associated with the university's intercollegiate athletic programs, from October 30, 1926, to February 21, 2007. Chief Illiniwek was portrayed by a student to represent the Illiniwek, the state's namesake, although the regalia worn was from the Sioux. The student portraying Chief Illiniwek performed during halftime of Illinois football and basketball games, as well as during women's volleyball matches.
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The Occupation of Alcatraz was a 19-month long protest when 89 Native Americans and their supporters occupied Alcatraz Island. The protest was led by Richard Oakes, LaNada Means, and others, while John Trudell served as spokesman. The group lived on the island together until the protest was forcibly ended by the U.S. government.
The National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) is the second oldest American Indian organization in the United States with a membership of more than 15,000. It was the first independent native student organization, and one of the first native organizations to use direct action protests as a means to pursue its goals. During the 1960s, NIYC acted primarily as a civil rights organization. It was very active in the movement to preserve tribal fishing rights in the Northwest.
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The American Indian Center (AIC) of Chicago is the oldest urban American Indian center in the United States. It provides social services, youth and senior programs, cultural learning, and meeting opportunities for Native American peoples. For many years, it was located Uptown and is now in the Albany Park, Chicago community area.
Edith Emerald Johns also Edith Big Fire Johns (1915–1999) Winnebago-Nez Perce was an American nurse and community leader in the Chicago area in the mid-20th century. She was one of the founding staff of the Native American Educational Services College and was inducted into the Chicago Women's Hall of Fame and the Chicago Senior Citizens Hall of Fame.
The Chicago Blackhawks name and logo controversy refers to the controversy surrounding the name and logo of the Chicago Blackhawks, a National Hockey League (NHL) ice hockey team based in Chicago, Illinois. The use of terms and images referring to Native Americans/First Nations as the name or mascot for a sports team without permissions from or consultations with local Indigenous communities, is a topic of public controversy in the United States and Canada. Since the 1960s, as part of the indigenous civil rights movements, there have been a number of protests and other actions by Native Americans and their supporters targeting the more prominent use of such names and images by professional franchises such as the Cleveland Guardians formerly known as the "Indians" of Major League Baseball (MLB) that was officially discontinued in 2016; the Washington Commanders formerly known as the "Redskins" of the National Football League (NFL), the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs and MLB's Atlanta Braves, the latter two attracting criticism of "the tomahawk chop" often performed by their fans. Like other teams with tribal mascots, there are calls from Indigenous activists and organizations to change the Blackhawks' name and logo and eliminate tribal mascots and imagery throughout sports. In contrast to generic names used by other teams, Blackhawks refers to a World War I-era U.S. Army division which was named for prominent Illinois-based Native American chief Black Hawk.
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LaNada War Jack, also known as LaNada Boyer and LaNada Means, is an American writer and activist. She was the first Native American student admitted to the University of California at Berkeley in 1968. She led the drive to create the Native American Student Organization and became its chair. As a leader of the Third World Strike at UC Berkeley in 1969, she was arrested but succeeded in obtaining approval for the first ethnic studies courses to be included in the university's curricula. A few months later, she became one of the organizers of the Occupation of Alcatraz in 1969. After the occupation, she completed her bachelor's degree at the University of California, Berkeley and went on to study law at Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C. While in Washington, she participated in the takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs office in 1972.
Jennie R. Joe is an American academic, medical anthropologist, and fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology. Initially trained as a nurse, she was one of the health clinic workers during Occupation of Alcatraz in 1969. She is a professor in the Departments of Family and Community Medicine and American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona. Joe was one of the inaugural board members for the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian and serves on the board of the Urban Indian Health Commission.
Willard Earl LaMere was a Native American community organizer and educational leader in Chicago, Illinois in the mid twentieth century, a period when the US government's Indian termination policy encouraged Native Americans to assimilate into mainstream American society. Working to preserve Native American culture and values as Native Americans moved from reservations to cities, LaMere was instrumental in founding, among other organizations, the Native American Educational Services College, which became the first higher education institution in an urban setting managed by and serving Native Americans. He was also the college's first graduate.
Nancy Dumont (1936–2002) was a Native American educational leader who lived in and worked in Chicago, Illinois and Montana.
The Chicago Indian Village (CIV) was a short-lived American Indian affordable-housing protest group in and around Chicago, Illinois, in 1971–1972 that worked to raise awareness of and remedy poor living conditions for Native Americans in the Chicago area.
Faith Smith is a Native American activist and educator. Her career included work at Chicago's American Indian Center, with the Native American Committee, and most notably as the president of the Native American Educational Services College from 1974 to 2004.
Robert V. Dumont Jr. (1940–1997) was a Native American educational leader who lived in and worked in Chicago, Illinois and at the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana, most notably as one of the designers of the Native American Educational Services College and its initial director of academic programs.
The Native American Educational Services College was an institution of higher education led by and serving Native Americans. It offered a BA in public policy within a curriculum that combined academic and tribal knowledge from 1974 to 2005. Its main campus was in Chicago, Illinois but also grew to include satellite locations in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and on reservations in Montana, Wisconsin, and New Mexico.
