Indigenous Rights Movements & the Law

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) required federal agencies and museums to (1) identify their Native American human remains and other objects, (2) try to culturally affiliate them with a present day Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization, and (3) repatriate them under the terms in the act. The National NAGPRA office, within the Department of the Interior's National Park Service (NPS), facilitates the government-wide implementation of NAGPRA. GAO was asked to determine, among other things, the (1) extent to which agencies have complied with their NAGPRA requirements, (2) actions taken by National NAGPRA, and (3) extent of repatriations reported by agencies. GAO reviewed records for eight key agencies with significant historical collections, surveyed agencies to obtain repatriation data, and interviewed agency, museum, and tribal officials."

NAGPRA, Bureau of Reclamation - Managing water and power in the West

This page contains links to American history relating to Native Americans. During November we celebrate Native American/Alaskan Native Heritage Month. Check out these statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, as well as the reference links below.

The first American Indian Day was celebrated in May 1916 in New York.

The Phoenix Indian Center is the oldest American Indian non-profit organization of its kind in the United States. The Center was formed in 1947 as an outgrowth of Native people moving to urban Phoenix not only to sell their crafts and goods but as a result of U.S. Government public policy. The Federal Government’s Indian Relocation Act (PL 959) created a mass migration of American Indians from rural, reservation settings to large scale cities across the United States during the 1950-1960s. The Act was an attempt to assimilate American Indians into the prevailing non-Indian city life culture and remove their practice of Native culture and traditions through the break-up of reservation systems. As a result, several Indian Centers were formed in the major “relocation” cities across the country. These Centers were crucial in providing a place for American Indians to connect and socialize with other Indians and to receive various necessary services as they were removed to live city-life. Phoenix was designated as one of the original “relocation cities.” Today, well over 125,000 American Indians reside off-reservation in Maricopa County, ranked second by county with largest number of American Indians (U.S., Census Bureau’s 2006-2008 American Community Survey (ACS). The Phoenix Indian Center has evolved over its years of existence, adding several programs and services for job readiness/employment, prevention, youth, cultural revitalization, and community engagement. Each year the Center reviews the needs for our ever growing American Indian population in the metropolitan Phoenix area and seeks funding to offer more services to address these needs. As the Center evolves, one thing remains true – we provide a safe, supportive environment for American Indian people looking for opportunity in this dynamic but unfamiliar and often challenging urban setting.

Providing national leadership to end violence against American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian women by lifting up the collective voices of grassroots advocates and offering culturally grounded resources, technical assistance and training, and policy development to strengthen tribal sovereignty.

The authors of five recent books in the field of Indigenous women’s history wish to restore Indigenous women to history, as Ella Deloria did more than seventy years ago. The voices and experiences of Indigenous women are so often muted and marginalized in standard written historical sources, but now historians of Indigenous women are intent on providing a more complete presentation of Indigenous women as multidimensional, complex and active agents of history.

Our stories are rooted in the earth and lie within our hearts. Our stories tell about our interrelationship with all that surrounds us—our four directions, elements, seasons, generations, and Holy Beings. Our stories describe the events, beliefs, and values that make us who we are and bring meaning and clarity to ourselves, our families, our communities, and our cultures. Threads from all our stories bind us together as Bilá ashdláí “five-fingered people” and can help us remember our shared histories, explain our present circumstances, and imagine our futures. Together, by making and sharing our stories with each other, we can heal our communities one story at a time. nDigiDreams performs media production and conducts community-based digital storytelling training workshops. We believe our diverse cultures, identities, histories and stories hold enormous strength and beauty and we seek to train and empower indigenous individuals and communities with new media tools to realize optimal health and wellness.

Profile First language/s: English, Navajo, Pueblo, Apache, other native languages Religion/s: Christianity, native religions Native Americans, the indigenous peoples of…

Working for Truth, Healing, and Reconciliation for Boarding School Survivors and Descendants.

A national Indigenous (First Nations, Metis & Inuit) alliance to bring together cross-disciplinary professionals, para-professionals, Indigenous knowledge keepers and Indigenous grass-roots com…

IWGIA - International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs - is a global human rights organisation dedicated to promoting, protecting and defending Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Since 1968, IWGIA has cooperated with Indigenous Peoples' organisations and international institutions to promote recognition and implementatio

The International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee (ILPDC) is the hub of communication between Leonard Peltier and his program coordinators, the general public, government officials, political and tribal leaders, the media, and his supporters worldwide. We are in daily contact with Leonard who is currently imprisoned at USP Coleman, Florida.

The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which the United Nations adopted in 2007, addresses both individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples and their relationship to land and natural resources.

The I-Collective stands for four principles: Indigenous, Inspired, Innovative, and Independent. Indigenous food sovereignty is critical because many health issues are tied to colonialism and the exploitation of resources and people.

“My young men are to lay aside their weapons; they are to take up the work of women; they will plow the field and raise the crops; for them I see a future, but my women, they to whom we owe everything, what is there for them to do? I see nothing! You are a woman; have pity on my women when everything is taken from them.”

The 22 indigenous communities in Arizona have more diversity of cultures than anywhere in the United States. Discover the ways you can experience these tribal lands.

The Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR) at the APS Library & Museum works with Indigenous communities throughout the Americas and with campus- and community-based scholars in many disciplines and traditions. Its goal is to assist people in finding and utilizing the extensive archival collections at the Library and Museum of the APS in innovative ways that honor Indigenous knowledge, cultivate scholarship, and strengthen languages and cultural traditions.

Arizona Indian Gaming Association advocates, educates, partners and promotes Tribal Gaming to benefit Tribes and all of Arizona.

November is Native American Heritage Month, which is a time to celebrate the diverse cultures of the indigenous peoples on the United States and for all of us to learn more about these cultures. As…

National Native American and American Indian Heritage Month (NAHM) is recognized every November as a month to acknowledge and celebrate Native American history, heritage, and culture. The journey to a month of recognition for Native Americans began over a century ago . This post provides a brief o

In 2017 Ithaka S+R launched a project to explore the changing research methods and practices of Indigenous Studies scholars across Canada and the US with the goal of identifying services to better support them in ways that are also beneficial to Indigenous communities more broadly. The project was undertaken by a cohort of research teams at 11 academic libraries with guidance from a group of advisors comprised of Indigenous scholars and librarians. Each research team in the cohort developed findings and next steps based on their local research engaging with Indigenous Studies scholars at their own institutions (listed in Appendix 1). Ithaka S+R has the deepest gratitude to the researchers, research participants, and advisors for contributing their time and insight to the Indigenous Studies project.

DENVER (AP) — A lawyer for four women who were temporarily banned from the Ute Indian Tribe’s reservation in Utah asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday to revive a lawsuit challenging their punishment...

The project will begin in the first quarter of 2021 and is expected to last ten months.

A new law that transfers coastal property from the State of California to Native Americans will be a historic first. Mendocino tribes could take…

The Passamaquoddy’s purchase of Pine Island for $355,000 is the latest in a series of successful ‘land back’ campaigns for indigenous people in the US

Amber Ortega, a Southern Arizona border activist facing two federal charges for protesting the construction of the border wall near Quitobaquito Springs, was found not guilty by a judge on Wednesday.

A Minnesota agency has appealed a federal judge's dismissal of its bid to end a case pitting it against a Native American tribe that sued, in tribal court, over a permit the agency granted Enbridge for its Line 3 oil pipeline replacement project, a Monday filing in federal appeals court showed.

Jessica Reznicek, who pleaded guilty to sabotaging the Dakota Access Pipeline, said at a sentencing hearing that she's turned her life around.