UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE COMMUNITY, POVERTY, POWER: THE POLITICS OF TRIBAL SELF-DETERMINATION, 1960-1968 A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Daniel M. Cobb Norman, Oklahoma 2003 UMI Number: 3102433 UMI UMI Microform 3102433 Copyright 2003 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Copyright by Daniel M. Cobb 2003 AH Rights Reserved. COMMUNITY, POVERTY, POWER: THE POLITICS OF TRIBAL SELF-DETERMINATION, 1960-1968 A Dissertation APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY Acknowledgments This project began seven years ago as a master's thesis at the University of Wyoming. There I had the good fortune of working with Brian C. Hosmer, a skilled historian and constant friend. At the University of Oklahoma, R. Warren Metcalf served as the chair of my committee, and I have benefitted from his constructive criticism as well as his counsel. Professors Loretta Fowler, Albert Hurtado, David Levy, and Donald Fisani contributed generously by reading and critiquing the dissertation in what ultimately proved to be a rather compressed period of time. Although he did not serve on the dissertation committee. Dr. Robert E. Shalhope taught me the importance of “tightening and sharpening” my prose, and his seminars very nearly convinced me to specialize in the nineteenth century. I also extend my appreciation to the Department of History and particularly Department Chair Robert L. Griswold and Graduate Studies Committee Chair Paul A. Gilje. The research on which my work is founded would not have been possible without the financial support of the Anne Hodges and H. Wayne Morgan Dissertation Fellowship, several Bea Mantooth Graduate Travel Fellowships, and a Cliff Hudson Fellowship. These awards, along with a Dissertation Research Grant from the Graduate College and a Horace Samuel and Marion Galbraith Merrill Travel Grant in Twentieth-Century United States Political History from the Organization of American Historians, enabled me to visit manuscript repositories across the United States. 1 am grateful for the assistance of the archivists and librarians at the Cherokee National Archives, University of Chicago, Oklahoma Department of Libraries, University of Utah, National Anthropological iv Archives, Princeton University, Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, Oklahoma State University, National Archives I and II, the National Archives—Southwest Region, Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and Stanford University. The Western History Collections and the Carl Albert Center for Congressional Research and Studies, both located on the campus of the University of Oklahoma, were particularly valuable. At the Carl Albert Center, Carolyn Hanneman and Todd Kosmerick capably guided my forays into their vast congressional holdings, while Assistant Curator John R. Lovett helped me to navigate through the Western History Collections’s valuable manuscript sources and voluminous Doris Duke Indian Oral History Collection. Together these two repositories provided much of the material I needed to develop the case studies of Oklahoma Indian involvement in the War on Poverty and to connect them to the overarching national and international narratives. For telling me the stories behind the written record, I thank Richard Boone, Edgar Cahn, William Carmack, Ross Cummings, Vine Deloria Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux), Forrest Gerard (Blackfeet), Leon Ginsberg, Margaret Gover, Senator Fred R. Harris, LaDonna Harris (Comanche), lola Hayden (Comanche), Noel Klores, Robert Roessel, Maynard Ungerman, Virgil Upchurch, Albert Wahrhaftig, Murray Wax, and Dr. Jim Wilson (Oglala Lakota). Their memories have made this a much better history. I am particularly grateful for the many hours spent interviewing and talking with lola Hayden and LaDonna Harris. In addition to granting me interviews, lola Hayden, Albert Wahrhaftig, and Murray Wax kindly made their personal papers available to me to use in this study. Several people who read and commented on earlier drafts of select chapters deserve recognition. Sonoma State University anthropologist Albert Wahrhaftig made me more conscious of the centrality of power in the story I have sought to tell and allowed me to join him during his return to the Cherokee Nation. Dr. Nancy O. Lurie read chapter two and provided critical insights on the American Indian Chicago Conference. Professor Murray L. Wax critiqued several chapters and offered extensive comments based on his own recollections as a participant in much of this history. University of Oklahoma historians William T. Hagan and Joshua Piker read the first draft of a rather long and torturous introduction. Their responses contributed to my ability to refine the methodology behind this work. Throughout the dissertation program, historian Richard Lowitt shared his thoughts and made suggestions based on his research into the life of Senator Fred R. Harris. And finally graduate student Sterling Fluharty graciously shared citations to and insights on the National Indian Youth Council. Select portions of several chapters in Part Two appeared in essays published in the JW/an CwZfwg nW JbwrnaZ and IFgffgr/z F/rfforrca/ gwarfgrJx ' I would like to thank AICRJ editor Duane Champagne and David Rich Lewis, associate editor of the WHQ, for granting me permission to use excerpts in the text that follows. A special note of gratitude is due to Professor Lewis. He challenged me to improve the original draft o f‘“Us Indians Understand the Basics’: Oklahoma Indians and the Politics ' Daniel M. Cobb, “Philosophy of an Indian War: Indian Community Action in the Johnson Administration’s War on Indian Poverty, 1964-1968,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 22, no. 2 (1998): 41-66; Daniel M. Cobb, ‘“Us Indians Understand the Basics’: Oklahoma Indians and the Politics of Community Action, 1964-1970,” Western Historical Quarterly XXXIII, no. 1 (spring 2002): 41- 66. vi of Community Action, 1964-1970,” and it was through his encouragement and the incisive comments of the referees that I was able to turn it into an essay worthy of the Western History Association’s Bert M. Fireman Award. I am fortunate to have had several role models during my time as a student, but I would like to single out two people in particular. The first is Professor Norman Stillman, the Schusterman/Josey Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Oklahoma. As fate would have it, I was appointed to be his research assistant during a year when I would need his presence the most. A gifted teacher, accomplished author, and wise mentor, I consider him to be the consummate scholar. The second individual is my father. Dr. Stephen G. Cobb. I have always looked to him as the kind of person that I aspire to be—-intellectually astute, socially conscious, and utterly selfless. At least it can now he said that I, too, have earned a Ph.D. I will have to continue to work on the others. One does not survive the rigors of a doctoral program without a strong support network. I am thankful that I could turn to my family. My brother and sister were never more than a phone call away, and they consistently helped me to keep things in perspective—even when they did not necessarily realize they were doing it. My wife, Nicole, did the same. Over the past five years, she has sacrificed a great deal in order to give me the time I needed to study, travel, and write. She is my strength. Though not yet two years of age, our daughter, Anna, has inspired me to work harder as well. She has great expectations: if you ask her, she will tell you that her daddy is going to win the Pulitzer. Finally, I want to acknowledge the profound debt I owe to my mother and father. For their undeviating love and encouragement, I dedicate this dissertation to them. vii Contents Acknowledgments iv Contents viii Abstract ix Introduction Continuing Encounters; Toward an American Indian Political History 1 Part I: Prelude, 1960-1963 16 1. Awakenings: The Mainstream & Its Discontents 19 2. Convergence: From Denver to Dallas, 1960-1963 44 Part H: Fugue, 1963-1968 110 3. Contested Meanings: Defining Community Action, 1963-1964 114 4. activists & Manipulators: The Politics of Poverty, 1964-1965 154 5. Nations Within: The Politics of Self-Determination, 1965-1967 191 6. Understanding the Basics: Community Action in Eastern Oklahoma, 1963-1967 227 7. To Oklahoma & Back Again: Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity & The National Politics of Poverty, 1963-1968 264 Coda: Sound & Fury Signifying Nothing 299 Bibliography 314 vm Abstract “Community, Poverty, Power” explores how tribal self-determination moved from the periphery to the center of the public sphere during the 1960s. Focusing on the Association on American Indian Affairs, National Congress of American Indians, American Indian Chicago Conference, Workshop on American Indian Affairs, and National Indian Youth Council, Part One demonstrates that the struggle against termination and assimilation cannot be understood apart from the global politics of decolonization and domestic contests over race and mass society. Having situated the study in this milieu, Part Two examines the central role the War on Poverty, and particularly the Community Action Program, played in the politics of self-determination after its inauguration in 1964. Based on original manuscript research and interviews with Vine Deloria Jr., Forrest Gerard, Dr. Jim Wilson, and other central actors, these chapters detail the complex series of negotiations regarding the nature of poverty, the meaning of community, and the fate of tribal identities that followed. Two additional chapters focused on Oklahoma, and informed by interviews with LaDonna Harris, Senator Fred R. Harris, lola Hayden, and others demonstrate the interconnectedness of local people’s experiences and the decisions made by national policymakers.