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On May 23, 2024, the U.S. Capitol Historical Society hosted an in-person and virtual symposium commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act. The symposium featured several of the world’s leading scholars and authors of Native American history, culture, and politics who engaged in lively conversations about the broader and complicated issues of Indian citizenship, both historical and modern.
Moving forward, the U.S. Capitol Historical Society will continue to explore Native American issues and produce more lesson plans and educational resources about Native American history. These resources will be available on our We the People Hub for teachers and students, furthering our commitment to fostering understanding and appreciation of Native American heritage and contributions to American society.
Watch the opening remarks of our Native American Suffrage Symposium by Jane L. Campbell, CEO and President of USCHS. The event begins with a prayer led by Larry Wright Jr., an enrolled member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and former tribal chairman with 11 years of service. Wright now serves as the executive director of the National Congress of American Indians.
Larry Wright Jr. is an enrolled member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and served as tribal chairman for his tribal nation for 11 years. Currently, Wright is the executive director of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), which describes itself as the oldest, largest, and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization serving the broad interests of tribal governments and communities. In this position, Wright is responsible for managing the organization’s day-to-day operations and creating a strategic pathway to long-term success for NCAI and its public-education arm, the NCAI Fund.
Before joining NCAI as a staff member, Wright represented the Great Plains region as the NCAI executive committee’s area vice president. In addition, he served as a board member for the National Indian Health Board, as chairman of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs board of directors, and as chairman of the Nebraska Inter-Tribal Coalition.
Wright is a military veteran who brings with him a diverse background in education, management, and entrepreneurship. He previously served as a secondary social studies teacher in Lincoln, Nebraska, public schools and owned a general contracting business.
Historians provided a comprehensive analysis of Native American citizenship, suffrage, and sovereignty in the context of and beyond the Snyder Act. Dr. David Silverman, a History professor at George Washington University, detailed how, even before the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, there were numerous efforts to “civilize” and dispossess Native Americans. Citizenship often seemed like an “empty promise,” even by 1924. Dr. Lila Teeters Knolle, History lecturer at Harvard University, added that opponents of citizenship feared the imposition of a foreign cultural and political system, while proponents saw it as a “simple act of justice to render to the Indian that which has long been due.”
John Echohawk, Executive Director of the Native American Rights Fund, highlighted how U.S. policies of “termination and assimilation” evolved into a push for greater tribal sovereignty, which continues to be pursued through lobbying and legal action. Echohawk also explored the challenges to suffrage that still exist for Native American communities, highlighting their advocacy efforts and strategies for effecting change in this crucial area. The discussion was expertly moderated by Jennifer Romero, Majority Staff Director for the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, who facilitated a nuanced exploration of these complex topics.
Join us for an insightful session with Elizabeth Hidalgo Reese Yunpoví (Tewa: Willow Flower), a leading expert in American Indian tribal law. In her talk at the Native American Suffrage Symposium, Reese explores the relationship between tribal nations and U.S. political institutions, highlighting how historical policies have denied Native Americans fundamental rights, including the right to vote. Reese questions why tribal governments are excluded from the U.S. democratic framework and advocates for their rightful representation. Her analysis offers a fresh perspective on integrating tribal nations into the constitutional order, making this a must-watch for anyone interested in the intersection of identity, race, citizenship, and government structure.
Elizabeth Hidalgo Reese, Yunpoví (Tewa: Willow Flower) is a scholar of American Indian tribal law, federal Indian law, and constitutional law focusing on the intersection of identity, race, citizenship, and government structure. Her scholarship examines the way government structures, citizen identity, and the history that is taught in schools, can impact the rights and powers of oppressed racial minorities within American law.
Professor Reese is a nationally recognized expert on tribal law and federal Indian law and frequent media commentator on developments within the doctrine, particularly at the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Reese is also a prominent Native policy expert and advocate. From 2023-2024, she served as the Senior Policy Advisor for Native Affairs at the White House, working within the Domestic Policy Council. In that role, she advised President Biden and his
Senior Staff on all matters involving Tribal Nations and coordinated or drove Native policy development across 20+ federal agencies.
Prior to becoming an academic, Professor Reese worked at the National Congress of American Indians where she supported tribal governments across the country as they implemented expanded criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians under the 2013 Violence Against Women Act. Reese began her legal career as a civil rights litigator at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund where she led a desegregation case in one of the largest school districts in Florida and worked on the challenge to Alabama’s Voter ID law.
Watch as Dawson Her Many Horses, head of Native American Banking at Wells Fargo, and Kevin Gover, Undersecretary for Museums and Culture at Smithsonian Institution, engage in a compelling lunchtime discussion about Native American representation in predominant national narratives. They debunked old myths about Native American history at Thanksgiving through Little Big Horn; shined light on Native Americans’ historic contribution to U.S. military service; and unpacked newer Native American representations in modern culture, from Oscar-nominated actor Lily Gladstone’s role in “Killers of the Flower Moon” to the hit series “Reservation Dogs.”
Larry Wright Jr., Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians, emphasized the importance of civic education to help tribal governments and communities adjust to the changing dynamics of Congress, the administration, the country, and economics, stating that “we’re voting for people who understand and defend our issues.” The Hon. Bryan Newland, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, concluded by noting the strong results when Native Americans use their vote to uplift their communities and public servants from Indian Country. He affirmed that “not only does it benefit Native people, it benefits the United States.”
Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie
On June 2, 1924, Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act, also known as the Snyder Act, which granted citizenship to all “Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States.” Determining who is a citizen, and thus who is and is not a part of and protected by the nation, has never been a simple, straightforward process. Within the context of Native American history, citizenship to the United States is even more complex, adding questions of tribal sovereignty, land use, and access to suffrage. This Symposium uses the Indian Citizenship Act as a starting point from which to highlight broader complicated discourses on historical and modern issues of citizenship, sovereignty, and suffrage.
Native American Citizenship, Suffrage, and Sovereignty in History
Suffrage, Activism, & the Law Today
Native American Representation
Sovereignty in the 21st Century
Panel 1:
Historians will discuss the history of Native American citizenship, suffrage, and sovereignty in the United States as it relates to and beyond the Snyder Act.
Lila Teeters Knolle is a lecturer in Harvard University’s History & Literature program. She holds degrees from Vassar College, Teachers College – Columbia University, and the University of New Hampshire. In 2021, Lila was a J. Willard Hurst Fellow with the American Society for Legal History and the University of Wisconsin Law School as well as a recipient of the Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship with the Institute for Citizens & Scholars. Her current manuscript project is entitled Native Citizens: The Fight Over Native American Citizenship in the U.S., 1887-1924.
David J. Silverman is Professor of History at George Washington University, where he has taught since 2003. He is the author of several books on Native American, colonial American, and American racial history, including This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and Troubled History of Thanksgiving, which was published by Bloomsbury in 2019, and Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America, which appeared with the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press in 2016. His essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and National Geographic. He is currently writing a book about Indigenous people and race-making in United States history.
Panel 2:
Panelists will discuss contemporary suffrage, activist, and legal efforts today made by Native American groups. This panel asks: what challenges to suffrage still exist and how are communities advocating for and creating change?
John Echohawk, Pawnee, is the Executive Director of the Native American Rights Fund, the oldest and largest nonprofit legal organization asserting and defending the rights of Indian tribes, organizations, and individuals nationwide. He was the first graduate of the University of New Mexico’s special program to train Indian lawyers, and was a founding member of the American Indian Law Students Association while in law school. John has been with NARF since its inception in 1970, having served continuously as Executive Director since 1977.
He has been recognized as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal and has received numerous service awards and other recognition for his leadership in the Indian law field.
He serves on the Boards of the American Indian Resources Institute, the Association on American Indian Affairs, the Indigenous Language Institute, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development. B.A., University of New Mexico (1967); J.D., University of New Mexico (1970); Reginald Heber Smith Fellow (1970-72); Native American Rights Fund (August 1970 to present); admitted to practice law in Colorado.
Elizabeth Hidalgo Reese, Yunpoví (Tewa: Willow Flower) is a scholar of American Indian tribal law, federal Indian law, and constitutional law focusing on the intersection of identity, race, citizenship, and government structure. Her scholarship examines the way government structures, citizen identity, and the history that is taught in schools, can impact the rights and powers of oppressed racial minorities within American law.
Professor Reese is a nationally recognized expert on tribal law and federal Indian law and frequent media commentator on developments within the doctrine, particularly at the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Reese is also a prominent Native policy expert and advocate. From 2023-2024, she served as the Senior Policy Advisor for Native Affairs at the White House, working within the Domestic Policy Council. In that role, she advised President Biden and his Senior Staff on all matters involving Tribal Nations and coordinated or drove Native policy development across 20+ federal agencies.
Prior to becoming an academic, Professor Reese worked at the National Congress of American Indians where she supported tribal governments across the country as they implemented expanded criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians under the 2013 Violence Against Women Act. Reese began her legal career as a civil rights litigator at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund where she led a desegregation case in one of the largest school districts in Florida and worked on the challenge to Alabama’s Voter ID law.
Lunchtime Conversation:
A lunchtime conversation with individuals in community-facing roles about Native American representation in predominant national narratives.
Kevin Gover is the Under Secretary for Museums and Culture at the Smithsonian. The Office of the Under Secretary for Museums and Culture oversees the Institution’s history and art museums, its cultural centers, and the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Exhibits and the National Collections Program. He had served as director of the National Museum of the American Indian from 2007 until January 2021.
Gover, a citizen of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, served as the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., and its George Gustav Heye Center in New York City for 14 years. He also oversaw the Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Maryland. He led the museums to pursue equity and social justice for Native people through education, inspiration and empowerment, and museums have worked to expand what it means to be Native American.
Dawson Her Many Horses is a Managing Director and the Head of Native American Banking for Wells Fargo. Her Many Horses belongs to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota and is one of the first enrolled tribal members to be promoted to Managing Director at a major U.S. bank. In addition, Her Many Horses was selected in June to the 2023 Class of the Aspen Institute Finance Leaders Fellowship, a cohort of financial leaders worldwide committed to driving positive change and ensuring a more inclusive and sustainable financial ecosystem for future generations. Additional information can be found at Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Her Many Horses is on the board of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. He is a member of the Center for Indian Country Development’s Leadership Council at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and he is the chair of the Native American Visiting Committee at Dartmouth College. Her Many Horses is the founder and chair of NAFOA’s Corporate Advisory Committee, where he served on the board for several years.
Education: B.A., Columbia University; M.B.A., Dartmouth
Panel 3:
Panelists will reflect on Native American sovereignty in the 21st Century. This panel will bring together leaders in their respective fields to discuss shifting relationships between Tribal Nations and the Federal Government.
Larry Wright Jr. is an enrolled member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and served as tribal chairman for his tribal nation for 11 years. Currently, Wright is the executive director of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), which describes itself as the oldest, largest, and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization serving the broad interests of tribal governments and communities. In this position, Wright is responsible for managing the organization’s day-to-day operations and creating a strategic pathway to long-term success for NCAI and its public-education arm, the NCAI Fund.
Before joining NCAI as a staff member, Wright represented the Great Plains region as the NCAI executive committee’s area vice president. In addition, he served as a board member for the National Indian Health Board, as chairman of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs board of directors, and as chairman of the Nebraska Inter-Tribal Coalition.
Wright is a military veteran who brings with him a diverse background in education, management, and entrepreneurship. He previously served as a secondary social studies teacher in Lincoln, Nebraska, public schools and owned a general contracting business.
Bryan Newland is a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community (Ojibwe), where he recently completed his tenure as Tribal President. Prior to that, Bryan served as Chief Judge of the Bay Mills Tribal Court. From 2009 to 2012, he served as a Counselor and Policy Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of the Interior – Indian Affairs. He is a graduate of Michigan State University and the Michigan State University College of Law. Bryan enjoys hiking and kayaking the shores of Lake Superior, and is a nature photography enthusiast. He now serves as Assistant Secretary of the Interior – Indian Affairs.
Watch the Society’s insightful webinars on Native American history! Explore diverse topics from tribal history to modern issues. Whether you’re a student, history buff, or curious learner, these videos offer valuable insights into Native American heritage.
Discover the heart of American history with the U.S. Capitol Historical Society! Founded in 1962, the Society has proudly worked to preserve and share the history of the Capitol, the Congress, and the people who work therein. As a nonpartisan, educational 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, the Society was chartered by Congress in 1978, in part, “to foster and increase an informed patriotism.” In service of this mission, the Society conducts historical tours of the Capitol Building, hosts both virtual and in-person public history programming, publishes scholarly research in various aspects of Capitol History, coordinates a digital civics education resource hub for teachers, manages a renowned civics education field trip program for Title I D.C. public school students, and commissions works of fine art for the Capitol collections.
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