Vine Deloria, Jr. - Activism

Activism

"Mr. Deloria ... steadfastly worked to demythologize how white Americans thought of American Indians," wrote Kirk Johnson.

In 1964, Deloria was elected executive director of the National Congress of American Indians. During his three-year term, the organization went from bankruptcy to solvency, and membership went from 19 to 156 tribes. Through the years, he was involved with many Native American organizations. Beginning in 1977, he was a board member of the National Museum of the American Indian.

While teaching at Western Washington State College at Bellingham, Washington, Deloria advocated for the treaty fishing rights of local Native American tribes. He worked on the legal case that led to the historic Boldt Decision of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. Judge Boldt's ruling in United States v. Washington (1974) validated Indian fishing rights in the state as continuing past the tribes' cession of millions of acres of land to the United States in the 1850s. Thereafter Native Americans had the right to half the catch in fishing in the state.