Chief wilma mankiller biography for kids
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“One of the things my parents taught me, and I'll always be grateful . . . is to not ever let anybody else define me; [but] for me to define myself . . .”
Wilma Mankiller is honored and recognized as the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. She is also the first woman elected as chief of a major Native tribe. She spent her remarkable life fighting for the rights of American Indians.
Born on November 18, 1945, in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, Wilma was the sixth of eleven children born to Charley Mankiller and Clara Irene Sitton. The surname "Mankiller," Asgaya-dihi (Cherokee syllabary: ᎠᏍᎦᏯᏗᎯ) in the Cherokee language, refers to a traditional Cherokee military rank, like a captain or major.
Though Mankiller recalled that she never felt poor growing up, the family’s rural ancestral home had no electricity, indoor plumbing, or telephones. When she was 11, the family moved to San Francisco, California as part of a Bureau of Indian Affairs’ relocation policy, which aimed to move Indians off federally subsidized lands with the promise of jobs in America’s big cities. Her father became a warehouse worker and union organizer. In a 1993 interview with The New York Times, Mankiller described the move as “my own little Trail of Tears
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Wilma Mankiller
Cherokee Nation chief and activist (1945–2010)
Wilma Pearl Mankiller (Cherokee: ᎠᏥᎳᏍᎩ ᎠᏍᎦᏯᏗᎯ, romanized: Atsilasgi Asgayadihi; November 18, 1945 – April 6, 2010) was a Native American activist, social worker, community developer and the first woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, she lived on her family's allotment in Adair County, Oklahoma, until the age of 11, when her family relocated to San Francisco as part of a federal government program to urbanize Indigenous Americans. After high school, she married a well-to-do Ecuadorian and raised two daughters. Inspired by the social and political movements of the 1960s, Mankiller became involved in the Occupation of Alcatraz and later participated in the land and compensation struggles with the Pit River Tribe. For five years in the early 1970s, she was employed as a social worker, focusing mainly on children's issues.
When Mankiller returned to Oklahoma in 1976, the Cherokee Nation hired her as an economic stimulus coordinator. With her expertise at preparing documentation, she became a successful grant writer, and by the early 1980s was directing the newly created Community Development Department of the Cherokee Nation. As Di
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This profile was submitted by way of the Mineral Group, a national nonprofitmaking founded coarse Chief Wilma Mankiller make a way into 2006. Isinglass partners coworker indigenous communities, governments, keep from foundations add up build communal and fiscal capital minute Indian State through forwardlooking, culturally slander strategies.