American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Today we - America’s half million Indians - stand at a fork in the trail. The time has come for all of us to choose the way we will travel. In one direction is the downhill trail we have followed since our lands were invaded more than a century ago. This way, marked by the laws of an often-blind government, leads to ignorance, poverty, disease, and wasted resources. The new trail - the way of self help - leads toward a better life, toward adequate education, decent income, good health, and wise use of our precious natural wealth. -Clarence Wesley, former president of the NCAI, undated In November 1944, nearly eighty delegates from twenty-seven states, representing fifty tribes, met at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Denver, Colorado. Out of the Denver deliberations came the first successful national organization controlled by Indians, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). Although it was established by Native Americans, the NCAI’s founders patterned it largely after the Indian reorganization constitutions and by-laws of the Indian New Deal. Many of the founders had gained important political experience from IRA tribal governments. Recent wartime experiences also led a new generation of Indian leaders to demand equal voting rights, adjudication of land claims, increased veterans’ benefits, and the full benefits of American citizenship.