American Indian Center

Last updated
American Indian Center
FoundedSeptember 7, 1953
TypeNon-profit cultural organization
PurposeTo promote fellowship, understanding, and to perpetuate cultural values
Location
Area served
Chicago metropolitan area
ServicesArchery, Social services, education, cultural programming
Key people
AL Eastman, Archery Director
Website aicchicago.org

The American Indian Center (AIC) of Chicago is the oldest urban American Indian center in the United States. [1] 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. [2] [3]

Contents

Background

The Native American population in the city of Chicago grew slowly in the late 19th century but began to accelerate in the 20th century as an outcome of the US government’s Indian termination policy and Indian Relocation Act of 1956 as well as of the desire of Native Americans to avoid unemployment, overpopulation, and undernutrition on the reservations. [4] Throughout the early twentieth century, women’s philanthropic clubs had been the primary providers of social services for Native Americans arriving in Chicago. One of those clubs was the First Daughters of America, founded in 1930 by Cherokee-Creek opera singer Tsianina Blackstone, Anna Fitzgerald, and other Chicago-area Native American women. Among the goals in the organization’s charter were to discourage the unfair portrayal of the American Indian in popular culture, to eliminate race prejudice from textbooks, and to preserve the traditional arts, crafts, and music of the American Indian. It filled the need for social support and services until organizations like the American Indian Center were founded later. [5]

History

American Indian Center interior in the former home of the AIC in Uptown (1966-2018). Photo by Eric Allix Rogers, courtesy of the NAES College Collection at the Northwestern University Libraries American-indian-center.jpg
American Indian Center interior in the former home of the AIC in Uptown (1966-2018). Photo by Eric Allix Rogers, courtesy of the NAES College Collection at the Northwestern University Libraries

The Center was planned as a response to an influx of native people into Chicago prompted by the Indian termination policy and the Indian Relocation Act of 1956, which sought to assimilate Native Americans into urban America. [6] [7] As noted by the AIC, "Native people from tribes throughout the country, arrived in Chicago. In addition to the Oneida, Ojibwa, Menominee, Sac and Fox, and Potawatomi of the north woods, Lakota, Navajo, Blackfoot, Papago, and many others were represented. The result was (and is) a multi-tribal community (including members of more than 50 tribes) searching for a common social and cultural ground." [2] The center provided, and provides, a way for the people it serves to build community organizations and support in the city. [8]

The Center was founded in 1953 by Native Americans with assistance from the Quaker-affiliated American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). John Willard, the executive director of the AFSC in Chicago played a key role in organizing and raising funds for the project. [4] From its start, the Center has been overseen by the Native American members, from a variety of tribes, who make up its board. One of its longest-running social and educational programs is the annual pow-wow, and it has also organized study opportunities, exhibits, and conferences with academic institutions. [9] The Center has also collaborated with Chicago Public Schools to establish alternative education programs for Native American students, including Little Big Horn High School in 1971. [10] In addition to its present center in Chicago, which opened in 1966, in 2005 it opened the Trickster Gallery in Schaumburg, Illinois, to showcase contemporary Native American artists. Trickster Gallery is no longer affiliated with AIC. The AIC is a member of the Chicago Cultural Alliance. Archery at the American Indian Center hosts a Junior Olympic and Adult Achievement program.

Other legacies

The Native American Committee (NAC) in the city, which was the functional equivalent of the American Indian Movement organization in Chicago, began as a committee within the AIC, taking shape in 1969 to support the Occupation of Alcatraz by a protest group called "Indians of All Tribes." [10] In May 1971, Robert Rietz, a 57-year-old anthropologist who had served as AIC executive director since 1958, died unexpectedly and without a clear successor, triggering a period of instability and conflict over the AIC's direction. [11] A group of young AIC leaders who advocated more combative and confrontational rhetoric and tactics to advance self-determination, left the AIC and formed the beginning board and staff of the NAC. Many had come from the AIC's youth programs and educational committee, including Dennis Harper, Robert V. Dumont, William Whitehead, Faith Smith, Nancy Dumont, and Verdaine Farmilant. The NAC was central to the founding of the Native American Educational Services College in 1974, an influential institutional of higher learning managed by and serving Native Americans until 2005. [12]

The AIC was also an early supporter of a protest to raise awareness of poor living conditions for Native Americans in Chicago, which began when, in early 1970, a Menominee woman named Carol Warrington, a mother of six, began a rent strike to pressure her landlord to improve the dilapidated conditions of her apartment. On May 5, 1970, her landlord evicted Warrington and her children from her apartment near Wrigley Field. Protestors using the name Chicago Indian Village (CIV) borrowed a ceremonial teepee from AIC, which became the symbolic center of a protest camp to demand and draw attention to the need for better housing for Native Americans in the city. But many members of the Center thought the protest should be brief and did not participate as CIV's protests continued through that year and into the next. [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Powwow</span> Native American and First Nations cultural dance gathering

A powwow is a gathering with dances held by many Native American and First Nations communities. Powwows today are an opportunity for Indigenous people to socialize, dance, sing, and honor their cultures. Powwows may be private or public, indoors or outdoors. Dancing events can be competitive with monetary prizes. Powwows vary in length from single-day to weeklong events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Indian Movement</span> United States civil rights organization

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ingrid Washinawatok</span> Murdered Native American activist

Ingrid Washinawatok El-Issa was a member of the Menominee Nation of upper Wisconsin. She was murdered by FARC guerrillas in Colombia. At the time of her death she was forty-one years old, the wife of Ali El-Issa, a Palestinian, and the mother of her 14-year-old son, Maehkiwkasic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ada Deer</span> Native American scholar and politician (1935–2023)

Ada Elizabeth Deer was an American scholar and civil servant who was a member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and a Native American advocate. As an activist she opposed the federal termination of tribes from the 1950s. During the Clinton administration, Deer served as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs. Due to all of her advocacy and organization on behalf of Native people, she was recognized as a social work pioneer by the National Associate of Social Workers in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red Power movement</span> Native American youth movement

The Red Power movement was a social movement which was led by Native American youth who demanded self-determination for Native Americans in the United States. Organizations that were part of the Red Power Movement include the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC). This movement advocated the belief that Native Americans should have the right to implement their own policies and programs along with the belief that Native Americans should maintain and control their own land and resources. The Red Power movement took a confrontational and civil disobedience approach in an attempt to incite changes in Native American affairs in the United States compared to using negotiations and settlements, which national Native American groups such as National Congress of American Indians had before. Red Power centered around mass action, militant action, and unified action.

Indian termination is a phrase describing United States policies relating to Native Americans from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. It was shaped by a series of laws and practices with the intent of assimilating Native Americans into mainstream American society. Cultural assimilation of Native Americans was not new; the belief that indigenous people should abandon their traditional lives and become what the government considers "civilized" had been the basis of policy for centuries. What was new, however, was the sense of urgency that, with or without consent, tribes must be terminated and begin to live "as Americans." To that end, Congress set about ending the special relationship between tribes and the federal government.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs building takeover refers to a protest by Native Americans at the Department of the Interior headquarters in the United States capital of Washington, D.C., from November 3 to November 9, 1972. On November 3, a group of around 500 American Indians with the American Indian Movement (AIM) took over the Interior building in Washington, D.C. It being the culmination of their cross-country journey in the Trail of Broken Treaties, intended to bring attention to American Indian issues such as living standards and treaty rights.

Native American self-determination refers to the social movements, legislation and beliefs by which the Native American tribes in the United States exercise self-governance and decision-making on issues that affect their own people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Indian Youth Council</span>

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 second 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.

The Intertribal Friendship House (IFH) of Oakland is one of the oldest Native American-focused urban resource and community organizations in the United States. Founded in 1955, IFH was created by local residents, similarly to American Indian Center in Chicago. Beginning in 1952, the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) supported a plan to relocate Native Americans to urban areas, further encouraged by the Indian Relocation Act of 1956. The IFH continues to offer educational activities, elder and youth programs, holiday meals, counseling for social services, space for community meetings, conferences, receptions, memorials, and family affairs. According to author Ed Vulliamy, 90% of Native Americans in California, "of which the majority are not indigenous California tribes," currently "live in cities."

Chuck Cadotte is an American powwow dancer and powwow dance-style teacher. As an enrolled member of the Dakota Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Chuck is dedicated to supporting Indians in connecting to their cultural roots through teaching traditional Native American dances through the Soaring Eagles dance group, giving traditional blessings and participating in rallies that support Native American land rights and sovereignty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Little Earth</span> Residential area in Minneapolis

Little Earth is a residential housing area in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States that is home to nearly 1,500 people, many of whom are Native American. The residential housing association at Little Earth considers itself a united people of 39 different Native American tribes, but the area is not an urban reservation, a common mischaracterization. Little Earth is located in the Phillips community of Minneapolis. While being a notable district, it is not one of the officially designated neighborhoods in the city.

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.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert V. Dumont Jr.</span> Native American organizer and education leader (1940–1997)

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.

Susan Kelly Power (1925–2022) was an American author and activist and member of the Yanktonai Dakota First Nation. She founded the American Indian Center of Chicago, which provided services for Native American peoples.

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.

References

  1. Cutler, Irving (2006). Chicago : Metropolis of the Mid-continent (4th ed.). Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press. pp. 206–207. ISBN   9780809327010.
  2. 1 2 "AIC - History". American Indian Center of Chicago. Archived from the original on 19 August 2016. Retrieved 2 July 2013.
  3. "A Message from the AIC Board of Directors". aicchicago.org. Archived from the original on 19 December 2018. Retrieved 12 June 2017.
  4. 1 2 Janusz, Mucha (1983). "From Prairie to the City: Transformation of Chicago's American Indian Community.". Urban Anthropology. 12 (3/4): 337–371. JSTOR   40553015 . Retrieved 28 October 2020.
  5. Suzukovich III, Eli Steven (2011). The Seen and Unseen: Religion and Identity in the Chicago American Indian Community (Dissertation). University of Montana. Retrieved 6 November 2020.
  6. "The Urban Relocation Program". PBS . Retrieved 2 July 2013.
  7. Reid, Kerry (2013-09-05). "At American Indian Center's 60th Powwow, both ritual and dance contest". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2013-12-23.
  8. Lobo, Susan; Kurt Peters, eds. (2000). American Indians and the urban experience. Walnut Creek, Calif.: Altamira Press. pp. 91–93. ISBN   9780742502758.
  9. Lloyd, Nora; et al. (2004). Chicago's 50 years of Powwows. Charleston, SC: Arcadia. ISBN   0738533033.
  10. 1 2 Laukitis, John (2015). Community Self-Determination: American Indian Education in Chicago, 1952-2006. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. pp. 66–70. ISBN   978-1-4384-5768-0.
  11. LaGrand, James B. (2002). Indian Metropolis:Native Americans in Chicago 1945-75. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 230. ISBN   9780252072963.
  12. Cohen, Jodi S. "Native American college calls off its fall schedule". Chicago Tribune. No. 30 September 2005. Tribune Publishing. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
  13. Browning LeVeen, Deborah (1978). Hustlers and Heroes: Portrait and Analysis of the Chicago Indian Village (PhD). University of Chicago. pp. 107–108.

Further reading

Delgado, Louis. "Native Americans". www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org. Retrieved 12 June 2017.