Wilma Mankiller, by D.J. Herda, MARCH 2022 LTER
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Disclaimer: An electronic copy of the edited first proof of this book was provided in exchange for review by publishers TwoDot/Rowan & Littlefield, via Library Thing.
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Comprehensive and eminently readable, D.J. Herda’s biography of Wilma Mankiller manages to focus both on Mankiller’s history-making leadership of the Cherokee Nation and also to place it firmly in the context of the civil rights upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Born in Oklahoma in 1945, the sixth child in a family that would eventually include eleven siblings, Mankiller came into a Native American society in flux. Her father Charles, a full-blood Cherokee, was among those Native children who had been forcibly removed from his home and sent to a boarding school determined to cut students off from their heritage and assimilate them into White culture. Though he ran away from the soul-destroying experience to return to his roots, he again was pressured to abandon traditional ways by a federal program encouraging Native families to move into urban areas, lured by promises of work and other forms of social support. The program was part of the mid-century attempt to de-certify tribes as recognized sovereign nations, and one result was that Mankiller and her siblings wound up in the San Francisco Bay area with few of the government’s glowing promises to the family fulfilled.
Searching for the comfort of the familiar, young Mankiller found the Bay Area’s Indian Center a touchstone, and her involvement there placed her in the right place at the right time and with the right energies to become part of what ultimately became the immense civil rights tsunami of the 1970s. The 18-month-long Native occupation of Alcatraz Island stood alongside the growth of Martin Luther King’s Southern Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the National Organization of Women, the Black Panther party, and even the nascent Gay Activists Alliance as various groups of ignored, oppressed, and marginalized people organized and demonstrated for recognition.
Herda spends a fair amount of time in the narrative sketching the history of and differences between the various Native rights groups that sprang up in this period. He quite accurately notes that “one of the most significant differences of the Native groups was that the Native focus was less on integration with the dominant white society and more on maintaining their unique cultural integrity.” The goal, he notes “was less on obtaining civil rights as it was on gaining enforcement of legally binding treaty rights already in place.”
Mankiller’s growth within the movement and the prices she paid in her personal life are covered but not particularly dwelt on as she handles various organizing and support tasks before returning to her native Oklahoma with two small children and “an awareness of what needed to be done to let the rest of the world know that Indians had rights, too.” That drive led her into a job with the Cherokee Nation and set her on a course to become its first female chief, a position she held for 11 years until worsening health led her to decline to run for the position again.
Her actions and programs while in that position and her continued work for Native rights and the promulgation of Native culture afterward are covered in broad strokes with much quoted material from writers like Gloria Steinem and from Mankiller’s own writing.
Herda’s biography provides an informative look at an important figure in American civil rights activity of the late 20th and early 21st century, and highlights the contributions of an individual whose gender and ethnicity threaten to keep her out of general public knowledge about the era. As such. It’s a valuable piece of Americana. Historic and contemporary photographs planned for the print release version will enhance the text and help readers new to the subject gain some perspective on the history of the Cherokee Nation. One could wish for a bibliography, but sources listed in the Citations section are available to guide further reading on the topic for the interested reader.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Comprehensive and eminently readable, D.J. Herda’s biography of Wilma Mankiller manages to focus both on Mankiller’s history-making leadership of the Cherokee Nation and also to place it firmly in the context of the civil rights upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Born in Oklahoma in 1945, the sixth child in a family that would eventually include eleven siblings, Mankiller came into a Native American society in flux. Her father Charles, a full-blood Cherokee, was among those Native children who had been forcibly removed from his home and sent to a boarding school determined to cut students off from their heritage and assimilate them into White culture. Though he ran away from the soul-destroying experience to return to his roots, he again was pressured to abandon traditional ways by a federal program encouraging Native families to move into urban areas, lured by promises of work and other forms of social support. The program was part of the mid-century attempt to de-certify tribes as recognized sovereign nations, and one result was that Mankiller and her siblings wound up in the San Francisco Bay area with few of the government’s glowing promises to the family fulfilled.
Searching for the comfort of the familiar, young Mankiller found the Bay Area’s Indian Center a touchstone, and her involvement there placed her in the right place at the right time and with the right energies to become part of what ultimately became the immense civil rights tsunami of the 1970s. The 18-month-long Native occupation of Alcatraz Island stood alongside the growth of Martin Luther King’s Southern Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the National Organization of Women, the Black Panther party, and even the nascent Gay Activists Alliance as various groups of ignored, oppressed, and marginalized people organized and demonstrated for recognition.
Herda spends a fair amount of time in the narrative sketching the history of and differences between the various Native rights groups that sprang up in this period. He quite accurately notes that “one of the most significant differences of the Native groups was that the Native focus was less on integration with the dominant white society and more on maintaining their unique cultural integrity.” The goal, he notes “was less on obtaining civil rights as it was on gaining enforcement of legally binding treaty rights already in place.”
Mankiller’s growth within the movement and the prices she paid in her personal life are covered but not particularly dwelt on as she handles various organizing and support tasks before returning to her native Oklahoma with two small children and “an awareness of what needed to be done to let the rest of the world know that Indians had rights, too.” That drive led her into a job with the Cherokee Nation and set her on a course to become its first female chief, a position she held for 11 years until worsening health led her to decline to run for the position again.
Her actions and programs while in that position and her continued work for Native rights and the promulgation of Native culture afterward are covered in broad strokes with much quoted material from writers like Gloria Steinem and from Mankiller’s own writing.
Herda’s biography provides an informative look at an important figure in American civil rights activity of the late 20th and early 21st century, and highlights the contributions of an individual whose gender and ethnicity threaten to keep her out of general public knowledge about the era. As such. It’s a valuable piece of Americana. Historic and contemporary photographs planned for the print release version will enhance the text and help readers new to the subject gain some perspective on the history of the Cherokee Nation. One could wish for a bibliography, but sources listed in the Citations section are available to guide further reading on the topic for the interested reader.
