The National Indian Youth Council or "NIYC" is considered the nation’s second oldest American Indian

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 organization and currently has a membership of more than 15,000 nationwide. It was the first independent Native student organization, and one of the first Native organizations to use direct action as a means to pursue their goals. During the 1960s NIYC acted primarily as a civil rights organization and was very active in the movement to preserve tribal fishing rights in the Northwest. In the 1970s NIYC focused on environmental concerns and aided tribes experiencing problems with coal strip mining and uranium mining. Today the NIYC puts forth effort to improve public education available to Indians, job training, education of the general public on Indian issues, Indian religious freedom, and works to increase Indian political participation.

The Preamble to the NIYC’s Constitution and Statement of Purpose reads:

History

The National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) was established in 1961 by young American Indians

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 who were either in college or had recently graduated college. Basically, the NIYC is a result of youth expressing dissenting opinions from tribal leaders. This began during the American Indian Chicago Conference in 1961, where several young American Indians, a handful of who had become acquainted while participating in the Southwest Regional Indian Youth Council (SWRIYC), became disillusioned with the efforts of the tribal leaders.[1]:53-54. After listening to the ideas presented by the conservative faction of the conference, the youth began to express their dissenting opinions. This group, including Clyde Warrior

Clyde Warrior

Clyde Merton Warrior was a member of the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma and raised according to their traditions. In the 1960s, he became an activist for Native American sovereignty and civil rights, seeking to improve conditions for his people....

 (Ponca) and Mel Thom

Mel Thom

Melvin Thom was born on the Walker River Paiute reservation in Schurz, Nevada. A leader in the movement for Native American civil rights, Thom was one of the founders of the National Indian Youth Council in the 1960s.-Background:...

 (Walker River Paiute), temporarily called themselves the Chicago Conference Youth Council.[1]:57. Later in the year, after that summer’s Workshop on American Indian Affairs had ended, the group that had joined together as the Chicago Conference Youth Council met in Gallup, New Mexico.[5] It was there that the National Indian Youth Council was established. The NIYC is the second oldest national Indian organization and was influenced and aligned with the black civil rights movement.

Goals

The goal of NIYC is to protect Indian treaty, hunting, and fishing rights. Mel Thom developed the following creed from which many ideas were drawn and used in the preamble of the NIYC’s constitution:
Upon the foundation of the NIYC, the group decided that they would take the fight for the Native American People in a new direction. They would use direct action as a means to solve problems. Direct actions included fish-ins and marches. This inspired other organizations to do the same, such as the American Indian Movement

American Indian Movement

The American Indian Movement is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by urban Native Americans. The national AIM agenda focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty...

.[6]:2

Publications

In 1963, NIYC began publishing a monthly newsletter titled ABC: Americans Before Columbus. This was the first publication of the Red Power movement

Red Power movement

The phrase "Red Power", attributed to the author Vine Deloria, Jr., commonly expressed a growing sense of pan-Indian identity in the late 1960s among American Indians in the United States....

. The newsletter was one of the leading mechanisms voicing radical Indian thought. By 1962, over 180 tribal councils had subscribed.

Efforts During The Red Power Era

Fish-Ins

As soon as settlers began arriving to the Columbia River

Columbia River

The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...

 area, they began to challenge Indian tribes over fishing. The 1800’s saw fishing rights guaranteed to the Muckleshoot

Muckleshoot

The Muckleshoot are a Lushootseed Native American tribe, part of the Coast Salish peoples of the Pacific Northwest whose traditional territory and reservations is located in the area of Auburn, Washington, between Seattle and Tacoma...

, Puyallup

Puyallup (tribe)

The Puyallup are a Coast Salish Native American tribe from western Washington state, U.S.A. They were forcibly relocated onto reservation lands in what is today Tacoma, Washington, in late 1854, after signing the Treaty of Medicine Creek. The Puyallup Indian Reservation today is one of the most...

, Nisqually

Nisqually (tribe)

Nisqually is a Lushootseed Native American tribe in western Washington state in the United States. The tribe lives on a reservation in the Nisqually River valley near the river delta. The Nisqually Indian Reservation, at , comprises 20.602 km² of land area on both sides of the river, in...

, and other tribes of the Pacific Northwest by way of the Treaty of Point Elliot and the Treaty of Medicine Creek But, after WWII, residents of the area began to realize that pollution, logging, and the increasing population were negatively affecting the salmon run

Salmon run

The salmon run is the time at which salmon swim back up the rivers in which they were born to spawn. All Pacific salmon die after spawning. While most Atlantic salmon die after their first spawn, about 5-10% return to the sea to feed between spawnings. The annual run is a major event for sport...

s. Conservation measures soon began, but the tribes wished to maintain their fishing habits, which had not changed for generations. This angered sports fishermen, who wanted the tribes to follow Washington State’s fishing and game laws. The Washington State Sportsman’s Council sided with the white fishers and supported the conservation effort.

The first arrest occurred in 1954. Robert Satiacum

Robert Satiacum

Robert Satiacum was a Puyallup tribal leader, convicted felon, and an advocate of native treaty fishing rights in the United States. He was convicted of attempted murder and other charges in 1982, but fled to Canada to avoid a prison term. He was later convicted of child molestation in Canada in...

 was arrested for gillnetting without a license and out of season. The case continued up to Washington’s Supreme Court. It was eventually dropped, but had a lasting affect nonetheless. It had implied that the State had the jurisdiction to regulate Indian fishing. The conflict continued for the next few years and then began to gather more publicity in 1964. In February, tribal leaders met with members of the NCAI and the NIYC. It was decided that they would take action to protect treaty rights. How to protest became a topic of contention because many feared their cause would become linked with the civil rights movement that was occurring at the same time. Mel Thom voiced this opinion when he said “this is an Indian treaty, not a civil rights issue”. The NIYC and all involved felt that if their problem were equated with racial issues it would affect the outcome. The American Indian problem was a century’s old battle with the Federal government and they wanted it to remain within those terms.

Many of the tribes in Washington gave their support to the cause, as did some Seminole

Seminole

The Seminole are a Native American people originally of Florida, who now reside primarily in that state and Oklahoma. The Seminole nation emerged in a process of ethnogenesis out of groups of Native Americans, most significantly Creeks from what is now Georgia and Alabama, who settled in Florida in...

s from Florida, Winnebagos

Ho-Chunk

The Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago, are a tribe of Native Americans, native to what is now Wisconsin and Illinois. There are two federally recognized Ho-Chunk tribes, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska....

 from Nebraska, Blackfeet

Blackfeet

The Piegan Blackfeet are a tribe of Native Americans of the Algonquian language family based in Montana, having lived in this area since around 6,500 BC. Many members of the tribe live as part of the Blackfeet Nation in northwestern Montana, with population centered in Browning...

 from Montana, Shoshone

Shoshone

The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....

 from Wyoming and Sioux

Sioux

The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...

 from the Dakotas. Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...

 joined the fish-in effort and was arrested on March 2, 1964 during a NIYC fish-in on the Puyallup River. Episcopal minister John Yaryan from San Francisco was also arrested. These demonstrations were called "fish-ins" mostly for publicity purposes; the rest of the world would better understand the protests after making the connection to the sit-in

Sit-in

A sit-in or sit-down is a form of protest that involves occupying seats or sitting down on the floor of an establishment.-Process:In a sit-in, protesters remain until they are evicted, usually by force, or arrested, or until their requests have been met...

s carried out by young blacks in the South.

The next day, March 3, a NIYC-planned protest occurred in Olympia. Anywhere from 1,500 to 5,000 people gathered, making it the largest intertribal protest to date. Traditional dances were performed on the steps of the state capitol building, organizers gave speeches, and in front of the governor’s mansion one group held a war dance. Clyde Warrior

Clyde Warrior

Clyde Merton Warrior was a member of the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma and raised according to their traditions. In the 1960s, he became an activist for Native American sovereignty and civil rights, seeking to improve conditions for his people....

 declared that the fish-in protesting was establishing “the beginning of a new era in the history of American Indians” . In the end, the fish-ins of March 1964 did not bring about immediate change, but they were responsible for the gathering of more than 45 tribes; many of NIYC’s members considered the fish-ins to be “the greatest Indian victory of modern day”

The fish-ins continued well into the late 1960s. Finally, in 1975, the United States Supreme Court closed United States v. Washington to further review. The decision mandated that the treaty Indians had the right to catch 50% of Washington's harvestable fish.

Poor People's Campaign

The NIYC was one of the organizations involved in the Poor People's Campaign

Poor People's Campaign

Organized by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Poor People's Campaign addressed the issues of economic justice and housing for the poor in the United States King said, “We believe the highest patriotism demands the ending of the war and the opening of a...

 during the late 1960s in Washington D.C. The Poor People's Campaign had its beginnings in 1967, when Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...

 and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC was closely associated with its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr...

 (SCLC) began to plan a mass demonstration of poor people to converge on the nation's capital.. Members from the National Congress of American Indians

National Congress of American Indians

The National Congress of American Indians is a American Indian and Alaska Native indigenous rights organization. It was founded in 1944 in response to termination and assimilation policies that the U.S. government forced upon the tribal governments in contradiction of their treaty rights and...

 (NCAI), the NIYC, and other Native organizations met with King in March 1968. The NCAI and NIYC disagreed on this aspect of the anti-poverty campaign, and the NCAI eventually decided not to participate in the Poor People's Campaign. The NCAI wished to pursue their battles in the courts and with Congress, unlike the NIYC, which was an organization that was perfectly amenable to demonstration.

The poor from all over the United States descended on Washington D.C in early May. Over 2,000 demonstrators were transported by car, bus, and train to Resurrection City, a shantytown in West Potomac Park. Over 200 Native people were involved.

The following is an excerpt from a statement authored by members of the Workshop on American Indian Affairs and the NIYC, and delivered by Mel Thom

Mel Thom

Melvin Thom was born on the Walker River Paiute reservation in Schurz, Nevada. A leader in the movement for Native American civil rights, Thom was one of the founders of the National Indian Youth Council in the 1960s.-Background:...

 on May 1, 1968 during a meeting with Secretary of State Dean Rusk:

Trail of Broken Treaties

NIYC was one of several organizations that participated in the Trail of Broken Treaties

Trail of Broken Treaties

The Trail of Broken Treaties was a cross-country protest in the United States by American Indian and First Nations organizations that took place in the autumn of 1972...

 Caravan, which was organized by the American Indian Movement

American Indian Movement

The American Indian Movement is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by urban Native Americans. The national AIM agenda focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty...

(AIM)[5]. The Trail of Broken Treaties occurred November 3 through November 9 in 1972. It started as a caravan of cars from various reservations in the U.S. intent on concluding in Washington D.C. and ended with a week long take over and occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

Bureau of Indian Affairs

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...

. The goal of the Trail of Broken Treaties was to gain positive media attention to gain support for a policy of self determination. This event was one of the first times that American Indians united together.

See also

• Native American Pan-Indian Organizations and Efforts
• Red Power
  Red Power movement
  The phrase "Red Power", attributed to the author Vine Deloria, Jr., commonly expressed a growing sense of pan-Indian identity in the late 1960s among American Indians in the United States....