Library Displays 2022: Native American Heritage Month
The Library of Congress on National Native American Heritage Month
What started at the turn of the century as an effort to gain a day of recognition for the significant contributions the first Americans made to the establishment and growth of the U.S., has resulted in a whole month being designated for that purpose.
One of the very proponents of an American Indian Day was Dr. Arthur C. Parker, a Seneca Indian, who was the director of the Museum of Arts and Science in Rochester, N.Y. He persuaded the Boy Scouts of America to set aside a day for the “First Americans” and for three years they adopted such a day. In 1915, the annual Congress of the American Indian Association meeting in Lawrence, Kans., formally approved a plan concerning American Indian Day. It directed its president, Rev. Sherman Coolidge, an Arapahoe, to call upon the country to observe such a day. Coolidge issued a proclamation on Sept. 28, 1915, which declared the second Saturday of each May as an American Indian Day and contained the first formal appeal for recognition of Indians as citizens.
The year before this proclamation was issued, Red Fox James, a Blackfoot Indian, rode horseback from state to state seeking approval for a day to honor Indians. On December 14, 1915, he presented the endorsements of 24 state governments at the White House. There is no record, however, of such a national day being proclaimed.
The first American Indian Day in a state was declared on the second Saturday in May 1916 by the governor of New York. Several states celebrate the fourth Friday in September. In Illinois, for example, legislators enacted such a day in 1919. Presently, several states have designated Columbus Day as Native American Day, but it continues to be a day we observe without any recognition as a national legal holiday.
In 1990 President George H. W. Bush approved a joint resolution designating November 1990 “National American Indian Heritage Month.” Similar proclamations, under variants on the name (including “Native American Heritage Month” and “National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month”) have been issued each year since 1994.
Externally-Owned Titles
- Tracks byISBN: 9780060972455Publication Date: 1988
- Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball Story byISBN: 9781879960787Publication Date: 2007
- The Way to Rainy Mountain byISBN: 0826304362Publication Date: 1969
- A Radiant Curve: Poems and Stories byISBN: 9780816527090Publication Date: 2008
- The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year byISBN: 0060927011Publication Date: 1996
- The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse byISBN: 9780060931223Publication Date: 2002
- Love Medicine byISBN: 9780061787423Publication Date: 2009
- The Round House byISBN: 9780062065247Publication Date: 2012
Law Library Documentaries
- Our Fires Still Burn: The Native American Experience byCall Number: E78 .M67 O97 2013ISBN: 752423499588Publication Date: 2013
Wiener-Rogers Law Library Displays 2022
Featured Titles
- The Literary and Legal Genealogy of Native American Dispossession: The Marshall Trilogy Cases byCall Number: KF8205 .P37 2017ISBN: 9781138188723Publication Date: 2017
- That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans, and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia byCall Number: E76.2 .R4 2022ISBN: 9780253010438Publication Date: 2013
- Legal Codes and Talking Trees: Indigenous Women’s Sovereignty in the Sonoran and Puget Sound Borderlands, 1854-1946 byCall Number: KDZ483 .W66 J34 2016ISBN: 9780300211689Publication Date: 2016
- In the Smaller Scope of Conscience: The Struggle for National Repatriation Legislation, 1986-1990 byCall Number: KF8210 .A57 M38 2012ISBN: 9780816526871Publication Date: 2012
- Border Law: The First Seminole War and American Nationhood byCall Number: KF639 .R67 2015ISBN: 9780674967618Publication Date: 2015
More Featured Titles
- An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States byCall Number: E76.8 .D86 2014ISBN: 9780807000403Publication Date: 2014
- Thunder in the Mountains: Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War byCall Number: E83.877 .S49 2017ISBN: 9780393239416Publication Date: 2017
- Emerging Issues in Tribal-State Relations: Leading Lawyers on Analyzing the Economic, Cultural, and Political Trends Affecting Tribal-State Interactions byCall Number: KF8205 .A2 E46 2012ISBN: 9780314283924Publication Date: 2012
- American Indians and the Rhetoric of Removal and Allotment byCall Number: E93 .B633 2015ISBN: 9781628461961Publication Date: 2015
- The Bricks Before Brown: The Chinese American, Native American, and Mexican-Americans’ Struggle for Educational Equality byCall Number: KF4155 .M369 2022ISBN: 9780820362021Publication Date: 2022
- The Colonial Problem: An Indigenous Perspective on Crime and Injustice in Canada byCall Number: KE8813 .M66 2016ISBN: 9781442608054Publication Date: 2016
- Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States & American Indian Nations byCall Number: KF8202 2014ISBN: 9781588344786Publication Date: 2014
- Great Basin Indians: An Encyclopedic History byCall Number: E78 .G73 H573 2013ISBN: 9780874179095Publication Date: 2013
- American Indian History on Trial: Historical Expertise in Tribal Litigation byCall Number: KF8205 .H37 2018ISBN: 9781607815952Publication Date: 2018
- Native America: A State-by-State Historical Encyclopedia byCall Number: E77 .N3512 2012ISBN: 9780313381263Publication Date: 2012