March 28, 1995
Contact: Pamela Ripley
JOHNSON CITY -- Wilma Mankiller, the Principal Chief of the Cherokee
Nation of Oklahoma, will speak at East Tennessee State University on
Thursday, April 13, as part of the Presidential Distinguished Lecture
Series now in its tenth yearon campus.
Chief Mankiller's free public program, which includes a
question-answer session, is co-sponsored by ETSU's Center for Appalachian
Studies and Services. The lecture begins at 7:30 p.m. in the D.P. Culp
University Center auditorium and will be followed by a reception in the
Carroll Reece Museum.
The tentative topic is "Contemporary Tribal Issues" -- a subject about
which Mankiller is well versed. Mankiller became the first woman to serve
as Cherokee Nation deputy chief in August 1983, and mid-way through her
four-year term, she became the first woman Principal Chief of the
Cherokees, the second-largest tribe in the United States.
Since that time, December 1985, the tribe has received favorable
and unprecedented worldwide publicity, and giant strides have been made in
improving the Native American's lot throughout the 14 northeastern
Oklahoma counties that make up the nation.
Pushing the self-help concept to enable Indians to become more
economically independent, Mankiller has seen the installation of many miles of
water lines to local communities as well as the construction of numerous
new homes and the upgrading of others. At the same time, training and
employment, education and health services have gone ahead at full pace.
Mankiller decided to run on her own in 1987 and was elected
Principal Chief by the Cherokee Nation. In 1991, she sought re-election and won
her third
term in office, garnering 82 percent of the vote. Mankiller serves on a dozen
national, state, and local boards and organizations, is president of the
Cherokee Nation Tribal Council and is recognized as a staunch advocate
for rural Cherokees. In 1993, St. Martin's Press published her
autobiography, Mankiller: A Chief and Her People, which she co-wrote
with Michael Wallis.
Prior to her service as chief, Mankiller helped establish and
directed the multi-million dollar Cherokee Nation Community Development
Department, one which
continues to build the quality of life for hundreds of Indians in rural
northeastern Oklahoma. In fact, it was her grant-writing abilities that helped
secure funding for projects like Bell, a small Cherokee community in
Adair County that volunteered its time for the construction of a water
line extending several miles. The "Bell Project" has become the model
self-help project for Indian tribes and the federal government.
Mankiller is also responsible for landing grants to fund current
Cherokee Nation programs such as home health and home maintenance. She
continually pushes for Cherokee involvement in tribal efforts, and her
hundreds of proposals have solved problems for Indians with a multitude
of needs, including housing, water, health, education, land management
and social services.
The first female to lead a major Native American tribe, Mankiller
has received numerous honors, including her designation as Ms. magazine's 1987
Woman of the Year. In 1992, Mankiller was selected by then President-elect Bill
Clinton to represent Native American nations at a national economic
summit in Little Rock, Ark.
The Principal Chief was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in
October 1993, and last fall she received the 1994 Spirit of the People
Award presented by the Oklahomans' Institute of Indian Heritage.
Mankiller was born on Nov. 18, 1945, in Tahlequah, Okla., the
capital of the Cherokee Nation, and spent her early years at Mankiller Flats in
the Rocky Mountain community of Oklahoma's Adair County. Today, she
again lives at Mankiller Flats on ancestral land allotted to her paternal
grandfather in 1907.
For more information or for special assistance or seating for
persons with disabilities, contact the ETSU office of university relations at
(615) 929-4317.
###
Fred Sauceman
Director of University Relations
East Tennessee State University
Box 70717
Johnson City, TN 37614-0717
Phone: 615-929-4317
Fax: 615-929-5710
E-mail: saucemaf@etsuserv.east-tenn-st.edu