Jan Crull Jr. is a Native American rights advocate, attorney, [1] and filmmaker.
From 1979 to the beginning of 1981, Jan Crull Jr. was a volunteer on the Ramah Navajo Indian Reservation in New Mexico [2] where he made many contributions to the well-being of the Ramah Navajos. [3] Although a volunteer, a title - Assistant to the President and the Chapter (the reservation's local government) - was conferred upon him by a community vote already in mid August 1979.
His securing Federal legislation Public Law 96-333 [4] was a major accomplishment for it provided the Ramah Navajos with a legal right to lands that they had been living on for generations [5] and which made the people living on the lands in question eligible for the services and benefits provided by Federal government agencies and departments. [6] The legislation had had a turbulent nineteen-year history because of disputes regarding it within the New Mexican Congressional delegation, the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives, and local Navajo and Navajo Nation politics and between all of them because of its ties to railroad right-of-ways to the Starlake Coal Fields. While others, including U.S. senators and lawyers from leading Washington, D.C.firms, had been unsuccessful in seeking Congressional action on this matter, Crull had succeeded. [7] In obtaining it, he also taught the Ramah Navajo how to succeed in obtaining all mineral rights underlying the lands he had secured for them with Public Law 97-434 .
Crull's work for the Ramah Navajos led to his nomination for the Rockefeller Public Service Award in 1981. His nomination was endorsed by U.S. Senators [8] and U.S. Congressman who had worked with him to secure passage through both houses of the U.S. Congress, specifically Dennis DeConcini, Pete Domenici, Manuel Lujan Jr., John Melcher, and Paul Simon. [9]
In the early 1980s, Jan Crull Jr. served as a professional staffer with the U. S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education [10] then chaired by Paul Simon. Crull was responsible for developing legislation reauthorizing the Tribal College Act(The Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act ), creating special provisions for Native Americans in the Library Services Construction Act , and other matters related to Indian education. Sensing the negative impact of what would subsequently be called Reaganomics on Indian education and especially the Tribal Colleges, he called for a meeting of all tribal college presidents and other Indian leaders on the afternoon of July 21, 1981 at the now defunct American Indian Bank in Washington, D.C. There he proposed the creation of an American Indian College Fund akin to the United Negro College Fund and having the U.S. government provide matching funds to a level determined by the U.S. Congress. This "matching idea" was based on the reworking of the old Allen Bill language and incorporating it in the reauthorization legislation for the tribal colleges. [11]
In addition to his involvement with Amerindians, Crull's career path has taken him to teaching at all levels; administering at a top-ranked American public high school; [12] from defending juveniles accused of felonies while in law school to negotiating international business deals with their attending multi layered contracts; and from achieving overviews of corporate matters globally to marketeering in an assortment of locations worldwide. [13] His first light and learning in the investment field came when he interned at Dillon Read and GGvA [14] in the early 1970s and they were enhanced as he gained expertise over the years with his stays with private investment houses/sovereign funds in Geneva, Vienna and Berlin. His clients have ranged from global manufacturers to, for example, the government of India. He also has served in capacities involving infrastructure development in emerging nations. Although his name has surfaced in various international periodicals and newspapers, his only in depth interview appeared in a trade publication almost two decades ago wherein he warned U.S. manufacturers to examine their trade associations' charters to see if international services were mandated; and if they were, to see to it that they were carried out. [15]
In the early 1970s, Crull attempted to develop a film about Dutch/U.S. relations regarding West New Guinea in 1962, titled What About My Friend's Children . Because two of the three key figures were already deceased and the third one stymied him, he pieced together a short film that was only an outline of the original. Not in Fiction Only: There and Here Also was shown half completed. Both projects had Crull being mentored by Joris Ivens even though he, himself, could not devote much time to Crull's endeavors since he was busily engaged with other film work in China. AIDDS: American Indians' Devastating Dilemma Soon , To Mute Them Once Again , and Indian Buckaroos were short films, originally meant to be feature length which Crull released under the Vigil Film Production Company banner in the early 1990s. While he had been doing them, among other things, his goal was to develop a feature-length documentary film A Free People, Free To Choose. [16] [17] [18] After over one hundred hours of preliminary footage was shot or compiled, the film's subjects got involved in a lawsuit with one another (which had nothing to do with Crull) and the project fell apart although a part of it was salvaged and has been viewed. Erik Barnouw and Malcolm Mackenzie Ross served as Crull's mentors on this project. [19] Crull also had his brush with feature films: David Lean's Ryan's Daughter ; [20] John Trent's Sunday in the Country ; [21] and Alan Bridges' Age of Innocence . [22]
Crull was born in the Netherlands to Nederland's Patriciaat families. He became a naturalized American citizen.
After receiving his diploma from Lake Forest Academy, [23] Crull attended Canada's Dalhousie University is where he received his B.A. Honours; [24] the University of Chicago awarded him the A.M. degree; [25] and Tulane University of Louisiana is where he obtained his J.D. [26]
The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of June 18, 1934, or the Wheeler–Howard Act, was U.S. federal legislation that dealt with the status of American Indians in the United States. It was the centerpiece of what has been often called the "Indian New Deal". The major goal was to reverse the traditional goal of cultural assimilation of Native Americans into American society and to strengthen, encourage and perpetuate the tribes and their historic Native American cultures in the United States.
Pinehill or Pine Hill is a census-designated place in Cibola County, New Mexico, United States. It is located on the Ramah Navajo Indian Reservation. The population was 88 at the 2010 census. The location of the CDP in 2010 had become the location of the Mountain View CDP as of the 2020 census, while a new CDP named "Pinehill" was listed 8 miles (13 km) further south, at a point 4 miles (6 km) southeast of Candy Kitchen.
Ramah is a census-designated place (CDP) in McKinley County, New Mexico. The population was 407 at the time of 2000 census and 370 at the 2010 United States Census.
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An Indian reservation is an area of land held and governed by a U.S. federal government-recognized Native American tribal nation, whose government is semi-sovereign, subject to regulations passed by the United States Congress and administered by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, and not to the U.S. state government in which it is located. Some of the country's 574 federally recognized tribes govern more than one of the 326 Indian reservations in the United States, while some share reservations, and others have no reservation at all. Historical piecemeal land allocations under the Dawes Act facilitated sales to non–Native Americans, resulting in some reservations becoming severely fragmented, with pieces of tribal and privately held land being treated as separate enclaves. This jumble of private and public real estate creates significant administrative, political, and legal difficulties.
Dennis Webster DeConcini is an American lawyer, philanthropist, politician and former U.S. senator from Arizona. The son of former Arizona Supreme Court judge Evo Anton DeConcini, he represented Arizona in the Senate as a Democrat from 1977 until 1995. After his re-election in 1988, no Arizona Democrats were elected to the Senate for 30 years until Kyrsten Sinema won his former seat in 2018.
The Zuni Indian Reservation, also known as Pueblo of Zuni, is the homeland of the Zuni tribe of Native Americans. In Zuni language, the Zuni Pueblo people are referred to as A:shiwi, and the Zuni homeland is referred to as Halona Idiwan’a meaning Middle Place.
Dance Hall Of The Dead is the second crime fiction novel in the Joe Leaphorn / Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series by Tony Hillerman, first published in 1973. It features police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. It is set primarily in Ramah Reservation and the Zuni village in New Mexico, both in the American Southwest.
The American Indian College Fund is a nonprofit organization that helps Native American students, providing them with support through scholarships and funding toward higher education. The fund provides an average of 6,000 annual scholarships for American Indian students and also provides support for other needs at the tribal colleges ranging from capital support to cultural preservation activities. Charity Navigator gave the College Fund an overall rating of 88.36 out of 100.
The Ramah Navajo Indian Reservation is a non-contiguous section of the Navajo Nation lying in parts of west-central Cibola and southern McKinley counties in New Mexico, United States, just east and southeast of the Zuni Indian Reservation. It has a land area of 230.675 sq mi (597.445 km²), over 95 percent of which is designated as off-reservation trust land. According to the 2000 census, the resident population is 2,167 persons. The Ramah Reservation's land area is less than one percent of the Navajo Nation's total area.
John Collier, a sociologist and writer, was an American social reformer and Native American advocate. He served as Commissioner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the President Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, from 1933 to 1945. He was chiefly responsible for the "Indian New Deal", especially the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, through which he intended to reverse a long-standing policy of cultural assimilation of Native Americans.
Gallup-McKinley County Schools (GMCS) is a school district based in Gallup, New Mexico which serves students from Gallup and surrounding areas of McKinley County.
Ben Ray Luján is an American politician who has served as the junior United States senator from New Mexico since 2021. He served as the U.S. representative for New Mexico's 3rd congressional district from 2009 to 2021 and the assistant House Democratic leader from 2019 to 2021. He served as a member of the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission from 2005 to 2008, where he also served as chairman.
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Salazar v. Ramah Navajo Chapter, 567 U.S. 182 (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the United States government, when it enters into a contract with a Native American Indian tribe for services, must pay contracts in full, even if Congress has not appropriated enough money to pay all tribal contractors. The case was litigated over a period of 22 years, beginning in 1990, until it was decided in 2012.
Albuquerque Indian School (AIS) was a Native American boarding school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which operated from 1881 to 1981. It was one of the oldest and largest off-reservation boarding schools in the United States. For most of its history it was run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Like other government boarding schools, AIS was modeled after the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, using strict military-style discipline to strip students of their native identity and assimilate them into white American culture. The curriculum focused on literacy and vocational skills, with field work components on farms or railroads for boys and as domestic help for girls. In the 1930s, as the philosophy around Indian education changed, the school shifted away from the military approach and offered more training in traditional crafts like pottery, weaving, and silversmithing.
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