Families of Navajo Code Talkers decry Trump’s use of ‘Pocahontas.
During World War II, the Marine Corps used the Navajo language and the intelligence of Navajo men to create an unbreakable code. The Marine Corps selected 29 men, called the Navajo Code Talkers, who created a code based on the unwritten Navajo language. The code used word association by assigning a Navajo word to key military phrases and tactics. The Code Talkers made it possible to translate three lines of English in 20 seconds.
Tipi with sign "American Indian Movement"
Tipi with sign "American Indian Movement" on the grounds of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. during the "Longest Walk," 1978. Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/item/2011646498/
We hold the rock
In the early 1800s, Alcatraz island in the San Francisco Bay was a hiding place for many American Indians trying to escape the Mission system which was forcibly attempting to convert them to Christianity. Alcatraz later became a military and civilian prison through the early 1900s, and where many American Indians were jailed. From 1969-1971, Indians of All Tribes (IAT) took over Alcatraz island, known as the Occupation of Alcatraz.
Despite protests, Dakota Access Pipeline nears completion.
For most of 2016 through early 2017, hundreds of activists, including many Native Americans and their allies, organized to prevent the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline through land near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Many Standing Rock Sioux on the reservation and beyond mobilized, arguing that the pipeline violated treaties between Native tribes and the federal government and would threaten Standing Rock’s water supply. After months of protest, federal courts ultimately allowed the project
Washington team Name Protest
Between 1937 and 2020, Washington, D.C.’s football team was known as the “Redskins” — a pejorative term for Native American people. Although the mascot was criticized for years, it was not until the summer of 2020, that the team's owner decided to change the team's name. The team played the 2020 and 2021 seasons as the “Washington Football Team” before becoming the “Washington Commanders” in 2022.
First Native American cabinet member
Following Joe Biden’s election as president in 2020, former Rep. Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo, from New Mexico, became US Secretary of the Interior and the first Native American to serve in a US president’s cabinet. In 2022, her office published a report identifying more than 500 deaths since the early 19th century in Indian Boarding Schools.
Native Americans renew decades-long push to reclaim millions of acres in the Black Hills
The Great Sioux Nation and the U.S. government have been in a battle for decades over millions of acres of land in South Dakota. In 2011, the Supreme Court upheld the tribal claim to the land but offered only money. Tribal leaders rejected the offer since it is land that generates cultural, spiritual, and financial wealth.
