2018 – Writing,

Vine Deloria, Jr., author, theologian, lawyer, historian, and activist, served as executive director of the National Congress of American Indians.  Deloria began his academic career in 1970 at Western Washington State College at Bellingham, Washington. He became Professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona (1978-1990), where he established the first master’s degree program in American Indian Studies in the United States. In 1990, Deloria began teaching at the University of Colorado Boulder. In 2000, he returned to Arizona and taught at the College of Law.

While teaching at Western State College at Bellingham, Washington, Deloria advocated for the treaty fishing rights of local Native American tribes. He worked on the legal case that led to the historic Boldt Decision of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. Judge Boldt’s ruling in United States v. Washington (1974) validated Indian fishing rights in the state. In 1969, Deloria published his first of more than twenty books, called Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. This book became one of Deloria’s most famous works. In it, he addressed stereotypes of Indians and challenged white audiences to take a new look at the history of the United States western expansion, noting its abuses of Native Americans. It helped generate national attention to Native American issues in the same year as the Alcatraz-Red Power Movement. The book stood as a hallmark of Native American Self-Determination at the time. Deloria wrote and edited many subsequent books and 200 articles, focusing on issues as they related to Native Americans, such as Red Earth, White Lies, God is Red, We Talk You Listen, Of Utmost Good Faith and others.