INTRO
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ALT: Jim Thorpe kicking football (AP Images)
American Indians are an integral part of the American story. The modern era has seen their roles grow in many fields, including government, literature, sports and the arts. These trailblazers paved the way for the important accomplishments of successive generations of American Indians.
Jim Thorpe grew up in the Sac and Fox nation in Oklahoma. An exceptional and versatile athlete, Thorpe won All-American honors in American football twice. In the 1912 Olympic Games, Thorpe won eight of the 15 events comprising the decathlon and pentathlon. Although he was later stripped of his medals for having briefly competed on a professional baseball team, his honors were reinstated in 1983. In 1999, the Associated Press named Thorpe the third-greatest athlete of the 20th century.
Photo 1
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ALT: Charles Curtis holding gavel (AP Images)
Charles Curtis came from Kaw, Osage and Pottawatomie ancestry and spent much of his childhood on a Kaw reservation. He served for 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, after which he spent 22 years as a senator from Kansas. His leadership positions in the Senate culminated with his being voted majority leader in 1925. When Curtis successfully ran for vice-president on the Republican ticket with Herbert Hoover in 1928, he became the first American Indian to hold one of the two highest offices in the land.
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ALT: Close-up of Scott Momaday (AP Images)
In 1969, author Navarre Scott Momaday’s novel House Made of Dawn won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction — the first time an American Indian’s work had been recognized with a Pulitzer. Momaday’s ancestry is of the Kiowa tribe of Oklahoma on his father’s side and Cherokee on his mother’s. The author of 16 books, Momaday served as the Oklahoma Centennial Poet Laureate and in 2007 was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President George W. Bush.
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ALT: Maria Tallchief dancing (AP Images)
Maria Tallchief’s father was a chief in the Osage nation. She adored music and dance as a young child, and she studied dance in California before moving to New York, where she joined the famed Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. The choreographer George Balanchine wrote several of his most famous works for Tallchief. In 1947, she became prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet, the first American Indian to earn that title. Following her retirement, she founded the Chicago City Ballet. In 1999 she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
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ALT: President George W. Bush and John Brown shaking hands (AP Images)
During World War II, Navajo Indians served with the U.S. Marines in the South Pacific, transmitting messages in their native tongue. Because the Navajo language is unwritten, complex and spoken only in the American Southwest, it was effectively an unbreakable code that allowed secure communication. In 1992, the Navajo code talkers were honored for their work at the Pentagon in Washington, and in 2001, the original 29 code talkers, of whom five survived, were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President George W. Bush for their service to their country.
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ALT: Ronald Reagan, Wilma Mankiller, Leonard Burch and others seated at table (AP Images)
In 1985, Wilma Mankiller became the first female principal chief of the Cherokee. She was re-elected in 1987 and 1991. Here, in 1988, she joins President Ronald Reagan and Leonard Burch, right, chairman of the Southern Ute tribe. In 1998, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.