Indians Eager to Help Themselves
Diocesan Press Service. June 8, 1964 [XXII-6]
American Indians, who have been called the most poverty-stricken group in the country, showed themselves both eager and determined to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
This was the predominant mood of some 200 Indians from every tribe in the country as they departed from the nation's capital following a four-day American Indian Capital Conference on Poverty. The conference was held May 9-12 on the grounds of the National Cathedral and was sponsored by the 12 secular and church organizations that comprise the Council on Indian Affairs.
Called together to define the role of education in a national program aimed at eliminating Indian poverty, the delegates urged passage of the Johnson Administration's proposed Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. As an integral part of President Johnson's "unconditional war on poverty," this act would provide: increased employability of youth, mobilization of public and private community resources, higher living standards for low-income rural families, vocational training and re-training programs, credit loans and grants.
The fact that American Indians are one minority group that does not want to be integrated was forcefully made by youthful Indian representatives at the conference.
"We do not want to be pushed into the American mainstream of life. We do not want to destroy our culture, our life that brought us through the period in which the Indians were almost annihilated," a statement adopted by the National Indian Youth Council and read to the conference said.
The 150-member youth group also made it plain that "the attitude that non-Indians and some Indians have, that someday the Indians are just going to disappear and that we should be working to make them disappear is very wrong. We are not going to disappear."
A petite but fiery-eyed Mohawk girl put the Indian feeling in less softly couched terms.
"The American Indian wants to be segregated. He doesn't want to be part of white materialistic society, " she said. "For 350 years the white man has tried to force us to adopt his culture; you see the results of his efforts at this meeting. We want our own identity and we want to stay segregated. This is not a struggle of the races. All we want," she continued, "are treaty rights and negotiations, not new rights but the old ones that were promised."
Meeting during the conference, the Episcopal Church's Advisory Committee on Indian Work recommended the establishment of a public affairs office in the nation's capital to keep Episcopalians informed of Congressional legislation on American Indian affairs and other matters of Church concern.
In a unanimously adopted resolution, committee members called for "the authorization of the appointment of a permanent Washington representative" and requested "that funds be made available for this purpose."
This action was requested by the 1961 General Convention. As further spelled out in the Advisory Committee's statement of policy, purpose of a Washington representative would be "to present the concerns of the Church to appropriate persons in government and to channel to the Church vital information on issues of importance in Indian affairs."
The highest award that a non-Indian may receive from an American Indian organization was awarded to a consultant of the National Council during the conference.
Mrs. Robert L. Rosenthal of Lexington, Mass., staff associate in the Council's Division of Domestic Mission, was presented a "Citation for Service to Our Nation" by Lawrence E. Lindley, executive secretary of the Indian Rights Association on behalf of the American Indian people.
In her job, Mrs. Rosenthal is responsible for developing the Episcopal Church's work among Indians, both on the reservations and in urban areas. However, she has worked for "better understanding between the general public and the American Indian people," all her life.