Mattel has created a Barbie doll in the image of Wilma Mankiller, the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Take THAT, Oklahoma! Mattel has been issuing a line of Barbie Inspiring Women, which has included Rosa Parks and Susan B. Anthony.
Mankiller served as Principal Chief for ten years. During that time, she revitalized the Cherokee Nation's government, and advocated for improved healthcare and housing services. While in office, infant mortality declined and educational achievement rose.
Actually, Robert Owen was one of first two senators from Oklahoma when it became a state in 1907. Born in Lynchburg, Virginia February 2, 1856, Owen grew up a child of privilege, living in a mansion, and attending private schools in Lynchburg and Baltimore, Maryland. His father died in 1873, after the Panic of 1873 financially ruined his father's wealth. However, he managed to graduate from Washington and Lee University as valedictorian in 1877.
Owen's mother, Narcissa Chisholm Owen was part Cherokee and she wrote memoirs about her life being raised among the Cherokee. Robert Owen moved to what is now Salina, Oklahoma and was accepted as a member of the Cherokee Nation. After being admitted to the bar in 1880, Owen served as the secretary of the board of education of the Cherokee Nation from 1881-1884.
He argued many significant cases dealing with Native American land issues. He took the case of the Eastern Cherokees against the US government, seeking compensation for them under a treaty of 1835 for land they lost at the time of the Native American removals. He finally won the case after 6 years and obtained almost $5M for the Eastern Cherokees.
When Oklahoma became a state in 1907, he was elected as one of the first two US senators to represent the new state. He served from December 1907 to March 1925.
Owen passed away in July 1947 in Washington DC from complications from prostate surgery and is buried in Lynchburg, Virginia.
He was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1941.
William Wirt Hastings, born December 31, 1866 in Benton County, Arkansas, moved with his family to the Cherokee Nation, in Indian Territory. He attended Cherokee tribal school and graduated from Cherokee Male Seminary in 1884. He graduated from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee in 1889 and began his law practice in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
He was first elected to the US House of Representatives, making him the first Native American representative in Congress from Oklahoma. He served for three terms from March 1915 to March 1921. He was defeated by Alice Mary Robertson in 1920, but re-elected in 1923 and served for five more terms to January 1935. He did not seek re-election in 1934 and returned to his practice in Tahlequah.
Joseph "Jocko" Clark, born November 12, 1893 in the Cherokee Nation, in Indian Territory, is the first Native American to graduate from the US Naval Academy. Jocko attended Willie Halsell College, Oklahoma Agriculture and Mechanical College (now OSU), before being appointed to the Naval Academy. He graduated as ensign when he graduated in 1917.
He served aboard the USS North Carolina during WWI. After the war, he graduated as a naval aviator from NAS Pensacola in Florida in March 1925.
He was stationed on the USS Yorktown when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. In 1944, Clark was promoted to Rear Admiral. Subsequently, he was assigned to command the USS Hornet and commanded his task group in conjunction with Task Force in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
He served during the Korean War and was promoted to Vice Admiral commanding the 7th fleet before retiring from the Navy in December 1953, with the rank of Admiral. He passed away in July 1971.
William Rogers, born November 4, 1897 in the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory near what is now Oologah, Oklahoma, is known as "Oklahoma's Favorite Son". He made 71 films, most of them silent movies, and in the mid-thirties, was the highest paid actor in Hollywood. Both of his parents were of Cherokee ancestry.
He began his show business in South Africa as a trick roper and later went to Australia where he worked with the Wirth Brothers Circus. He returned to the US in 1904 and appeared at the St. Louis World's Fair. In April 1905, he was visiting Madison Square Gardens in NYC when a steer broke out and began climbing the viewing stands. Rogers used his roping skills to catch the animal, which delighted the crowd. He worked for the next ten years performing with his horse on the Victoria Roof in NYC.
He appeared in his first movie in Laughing Bill Hyde in 1918. His first sound film came in 1929 in They Had to See Paris.
In 1935, he asked Wiley Post, another Oklahoman, to fly him through Alaska in search of new material for his newspaper column. On August 15, after several stops in Alaska, they left Fairbanks for Point Barrow. About 20 miles south of Point Barrow, Wiley attempted to take off from a lagoon after asking for directions. The engine failed and the plane crashed into the water, killing both men instantly.
The international airport in Oklahoma City is named Will Rogers World Airport. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Mary Golda Ross, born August 9, 1908 in Park Hill, Oklahoma, was the first Native American female engineer. Her great-grandfather was Cherokee Chief John Ross. She attended primary and secondary school in Tahlequah, where she lived with her grandparents. She earned a Bachelor's degree in mathematics from Northeastern State Teachers' College in 1928, and received her Master's degree from Colorado State Teachers College in 1938.
Ross taught in rural Oklahoma schools for nine years. She worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a statistical clerk. She was hired as a mathematician by Lockheed Corporation in 1942 and was a founding engineer of the secretive Skunk Works. During her tenure there, she worked on the Agena Rocket program, and early studies of orbiting satellites.
She passed away in April 2008, just a few months shy of her one hundredth birthday.
Samuel Sixkiller, born in 1842 in the Cherokee Nation, which is now Adair County in Oklahoma, was the first Captain of the United States Indian Police in Muskogee. He supported the Confederacy in the Civil War and became a private in the 1st Cherokee Cavalry. At 19, he switched sides and fought for the Union with his father, 1st Lt. Red Bird Sixkiller.
In 1875, he was appointed to High Sheriff of the Cherokee Nation and Warden of the National Penitentiary. The position gave him authority of the Cherokee Nation and he became a Deputy US Marshall. In 1880, he became the first Captain of the United States Indian Police in Muskogee.
In 1886, he was murdered by two men on Christmas Eve. In March 1887, President Grover Cleveland signed a bill that made assault against an Indian policeman a federal offense.
In an unprecedented move, five of Oklahoma's largest Native American tribes will endorse Democrat Joy Hofmeister in her bid for governor against Kevin Stitt. In a joint statement the Five Tribe leaders said:
“When it comes to working with the tribal nations in Oklahoma, (Hofmeister) understands our sovereignty is not a partisan issue or a threat, but instead is a chance to forge new partnerships while strengthening those that already exist because Oklahomans thrive together when we all work together,”
Stitt is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, but apparently has poor relationships with tribes and their leaders. He's been labeled the "most anti-Native American governor in state history".
A campaign manager for current said Hofmeister has always been bought and paid for by "special interests." As if Native Americans are special interests. They constitute a huge percentage of Oklahoma's population and need to be heard and represented.
A recent SoonerPoll shows Hofmeister with a 3 point lead over Stitt.
Wilma Mankiller, born November 18, 1945 in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, was the first woman to serve as Chief of the Cherokee Nation. When she was 11, her family was relocated to San Francisco by the federal government as part of an "urbanization" of Native Americans.
She returned to Oklahoma in 1976 and was hired by the Cherokee Nation as an economic stimulus coordinator. Principal Chief Ross Swimmer invited her to run as his deputy in the 1983 elections. Despite fierce opposition based on her gender, she and Swimmer won, becoming the first woman elected as Deputy Chief of the Cherokee Nation. In 1985, Swimmer took a position with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Mankiller became the first woman to serve as Principal Chief, serving until 1995, when health problems led to her retirement.
Lynn Riggs, born August 31, 1899 near Claremore, Oklahoma to a mother who was 1/8 Cherokee. He started attending the University of Oklahoma in 1920 and taught English for a year, but developed tuberculosis and did not graduate. After recuperating in Santa Fe, New Mexico he traveled to New York and began writing plays.
After receiving a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 1928, he traveled to Europe and began writing his most famous play Green Grow the Lilacs, while in Paris.
The play went onto become the musical and movie Oklahoma!
Being gay, he was often a non-romantic escort in Hollywood for actresses such as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
He was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1943.
He passed away in NYC in June 1954 from stomach cancer.
Once again, Oklahoma proves it is a breeding ground of hatred, bigotry and racism. Businesses in Talequah, Oklahoma are posting signs in windows stating they no longer accept the Cherokee Nation's ID cards. A sign appeared at EZ Mart, which stated "state-issued identification or driver's licenses". According to the article on nativenewsonline.net, Buffalo Wild Wings and a local bar, Ned's, are also refusing the Cherokee Nation's ID card.
Cherokee Nation ID cards have been issued since 2012 and are government-issued. This is nothing more than racism and hatred.
Way to go, Oklahoma. We can't even go more than a day without becoming a global embarrassment.
