Wilma
Mankiller spoke of her personal experience of being part of the Indian of
Bureau Affairs relocation program. She was removed from Oklahoma and relocated
to San Francisco California with her family. Her family was placed in a low
income housing project called Hunter's Point which was made up of mostly
African American people. She described how the community worked together to
succeed rather than relying on the leaders f the community to do it for them. She
believed the "go-to" people in the grassroots community needed to
work together to solve common problems, that they need to believe in their own
voice. (Mankiller 2008)
What I
learned from watching her interview is that change has to begin with yourself.
You can rely on lawmakers and government to decide what is good for you and
then live with the consequences. You need to look within yourself and your community,
come up with solutions collectively and then work together with your combined
skills and voices to make the change occur successfully.
Wilma
Mankiller passed away in April of 2010. In a WSKG Public Radio clip, she was
remembered for changing her life towards the Cherokee approach after a 1979 car
accident that almost killed her. She was quoted as saying " I think the
Cherokee approach to life is being able to continually move forward with kind
of a good mind and not focus on the negative things in your life and the
negative things you see around you, but focus on the positive things and try to
look at the larger picture and keep moving forward," Mankiller explained.
"[It] also taught me to look at the larger things in life rather than
focusing on small things, and it's also awfully, awfully hard to rattle me
after having faced my own mortality ... so the things I learned from those
experiences actually enabled me to lead. Without those experiences, I don't
think I would have been able to lead. I think I would have gotten caught up in
a lot of nonsensical things." (WSKG Public Radio 2010) Her thoughts on
women serving in office in the Cherokee Nation tribe. At first there was
opposition, but after 10 years in office, she stated the people most supportive
of her were the older and more traditional people in her tribe. She and her
husband felt they realized that they remembered their history, and a time when
women held more significant roles, leading to more balance between the men and
women of the tribe. (WSKG Public Radio 2010) Her thoughts in this piece are reminiscent
of her ideas in the Indian of Bureau Affairs interview on working together and
trusting in yourself.
Mankiller, W. (2008) "Governance, Leadership, and the Cherokee Nation."
Leading Native Nations interview series. Native Nations Institute for
Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona.
Retrieved from: https://nnidatabase.org/video/wilma-mankiller-governance-leadership-and-cherokee-nation
WSKG Public Radio (2010) Remembering First Female Chief of
Cherokee Nation. Retrieved from: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125668640
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