Native America Calling: 100 years of American citizenship

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Friday, May 31, 2024

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100 years of American citizenship

U.S. citizenship was not a given for the people who occupied the land before there was a United States. Nor was the idea universally welcomed by all Native nations.

Citizenship ensured the right to vote in national elections and equal protection under the Constitution. But it also required relinquishing a measure of sovereignty, something the Onondaga Nation and the Haudenosaunee refuse to recognize to this day.

A century after President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act, Native America Calling takes a look at the strengths and sacrifices of becoming American citizens.

President Calvin Coolidge poses with Native representatives at the White House in 1925, having signed the Indian Citizenship Act in June 1924. Photo: U.S. Library of Congress

Guests on Native America Calling

Dr. Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne & Hodulgee Muscogee), president of the Morning Star Institute and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Robert Miller (Eastern Shawnee), professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University and tribal judge

Sam Deloria (Yankton Dakota enrolled in Standing Rock), former director of the American Indian Law Center and American Indian Graduate Center

Allison Neswood (Navajo), staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund