Introduction::

The following quote by Alvin Josephy will set the tone for this article's history of American Indian activism in the twentieth century:

"During the 1960s, the civil rights movement of the Blacks, the emergence of Third World nations, the Vietnam War protests, and other events had made their impact on the Indians, stirring a pride in their Indianness and arousing a sense of Indian nationalism. Among the young city Indians, particularly, as with those at colleges and universities, there developed a fierce loyalty to their individual tribes and to Indian people in general. From that point, it was a short step to militant advocacy of Indian self-determination and hostility toward the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] and all other White oppressors of the Indians."