The American Indian Center (AIC) of
Chicago
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is the oldest urban
American Indian center in the United States. It provides social services, youth and senior programs, cultural learning, and meeting opportunities for
Native American peoples. For many years, it was located
Uptown and is now in the
Albany Park, Chicago
Albany Park ( ) is one of 77 well-defined community areas of Chicago. Located on the Northwest Side of the City of Chicago with the North Branch of the Chicago River forming its east and north boundaries, it includes the ethnically diverse Albany ...
community area.
Background
The Native American population in the city of Chicago grew slowly in the late 19th century but began to accelerate in the 20th century as an outcome of the US government’s
Indian termination policy
Indian termination is a phrase describing United States policies relating to Native Americans from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. It was shaped by a series of laws and practices with the intent of assimilating Native Americans into mainstream ...
and
Indian Relocation Act of 1956
The Indian Relocation Act of 1956 (also known as Public Law 959 or the Adult Vocational Training Program) was a United States law intended to create a "a program of vocational training" for Native Americans in the United States. Critics charact ...
as well as of the desire of Native Americans to avoid unemployment, overpopulation, and undernutrition on the reservations.
Throughout the early twentieth century, women’s philanthropic clubs had been the primary providers of social services for Native Americans arriving in Chicago. One of those clubs was the First Daughters of America, founded in 1930 by Cherokee-Creek opera singer Tsianina Blackstone, Anna Fitzgerald, and other Chicago-area Native American women. Among the goals in the organization’s charter were to discourage the unfair portrayal of the American Indian in popular culture, to eliminate race prejudice from textbooks, and to preserve the traditional arts, crafts, and music of the American Indian. It filled the need for social support and services until organizations like the American Indian Center were founded later.
History
The Center was planned as a response to an influx of native people into Chicago prompted by the
Indian termination policy
Indian termination is a phrase describing United States policies relating to Native Americans from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. It was shaped by a series of laws and practices with the intent of assimilating Native Americans into mainstream ...
and the
Indian Relocation Act of 1956
The Indian Relocation Act of 1956 (also known as Public Law 959 or the Adult Vocational Training Program) was a United States law intended to create a "a program of vocational training" for Native Americans in the United States. Critics charact ...
, which sought to assimilate Native Americans into urban America. As noted by the AIC, "Native people from tribes throughout the country, arrived in Chicago. In addition to the Oneida, Ojibwa, Menominee, Sac and Fox, and Potawatomi of the north woods, Lakota, Navajo, Blackfoot, Papago, and many others were represented. The result was (and is) a multi-tribal community (including members of more than 50 tribes) searching for a common social and cultural ground."
[ The center provided, and provides, a way for the people it serves to build community organizations and support in the city.
The Center was founded in 1953 by Native Americans with assistance from the Quaker-affiliated American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). John Willard, the executive director of the AFSC in Chicago played a key role in organizing and raising funds for the project.] From its start, the Center has been overseen by the Native American members, from a variety of tribes, who make up its board. One of its longest-running social and educational programs is the annual pow-wow
A powwow (also pow wow or pow-wow) is a gathering with dances held by many Native American and First Nations communities. Powwows today allow Indigenous people to socialize, dance, sing, and honor their cultures. Powwows may be private or pu ...
, and it has also organized study opportunities, exhibits, and conferences with academic institutions. The Center has also collaborated with Chicago Public Schools
Chicago Public Schools (CPS), officially classified as City of Chicago School District #299 for funding and districting reasons, in Chicago, Illinois, is the third-largest school district in the United States, after New York and Los Angeles.
...
to establish alternative education programs for Native American students, including Little Big Horn High School in 1971. In addition to its present center in Chicago, which opened in 1966, in 2005 it opened the Trickster Gallery in Schaumburg, Illinois
Schaumburg ( ) is a village mostly in Cook County and partly in DuPage County in northeastern Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 Census, the population was 78,723. Schaumburg is around northwest of the Chicago Loop and northwest of O'Hare ...
, to showcase contemporary Native American artists. Trickster Gallery is no longer affiliated with AIC. The AIC is a member of the Chicago Cultural Alliance.
Archery at the American Indian Center hosts a Junior Olympic and Adult Achievement program.
Other legacies
The Native American Committee
The Native American Committee (NAC) was an educational group in Chicago, Illinois, that created life-long learning programs and institutions for Native Americans. It was most notable for founding the Native American Educational Services College, ...
(NAC) in the city, which was the functional equivalent of the American Indian Movement
The American Indian Movement (AIM) is a Native American grassroots movement which was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 1968, initially centered in urban areas in order to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police br ...
organization in Chicago, began as a committee within the AIC, taking shape in 1969 to support the Occupation of Alcatraz
The Occupation of Alcatraz (November 20, 1969 – June 11, 1971) was a 19-month long protest when 89 Native Americans and their supporters occupied Alcatraz Island. The protest was led by Richard Oakes, LaNada Means, and others, while John T ...
by a protest group called "Indians of All Tribes." In May 1971, Robert Rietz, a 57-year-old anthropologist who had served as AIC executive director since 1958, died unexpectedly and without a clear successor, triggering a period of instability and conflict over the AIC's direction. A group of young AIC leaders who advocated more combative and confrontational rhetoric and tactics to advance self-determination, left the AIC and formed the beginning board and staff of the NAC. Many had come from the AIC's youth programs and educational committee, including Dennis Harper, Robert V. Dumont, William Whitehead, Faith Smith, Nancy Dumont, and Verdaine Farmilant. The NAC was central to the founding of the Native American Educational Services College in 1974, an influential institutional of higher learning managed by and serving Native Americans until 2005.
The AIC was also an early supporter of a protest to raise awareness of poor living conditions for Native Americans in Chicago, which began when, in early 1970, a Menominee
The Menominee (; mez, omǣqnomenēwak meaning ''"Menominee People"'', also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as ''Mamaceqtaw'', "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recog ...
woman named Carol Warrington, a mother of six, began a rent strike
A rent strike is a method of protest commonly employed against large landlords. In a rent strike, a group of tenants come together and agree to refuse to pay their rent ''en masse'' until a specific list of demands is met by the landlord. This ca ...
to pressure her landlord to improve the dilapidated conditions of her apartment. On May 5, 1970, her landlord evicted Warrington and her children from her apartment near Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field is a Major League Baseball (MLB) stadium on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs, one of the city's two MLB franchises. It first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charles Weeghman's Chicago ...
. Protestors using the name Chicago Indian Village
The Chicago Indian Village (CIV) was a short-lived American Indian affordable-housing protest group in and around Chicago, Illinois, in 1971–1972 that worked to raise awareness of and remedy poor living conditions for Native Americans in the C ...
(CIV) borrowed a ceremonial teepee from AIC, which became the symbolic center of a protest camp to demand and draw attention to the need for better housing for Native Americans in the city. But many members of the Center thought the protest should be brief and did not participate as CIV's protests continued through that year and into the next.
See also
* Urban Indian
Urban Indians are American Indians and Canadian First Nations peoples who live in urban areas. Urban Indians represent a growing proportion of the Native population in the United States. The National Urban Indian Family Coalition (NUIFC) consid ...
References
Further reading
External links
Official Website
American Indian Center Video "50 Years of Service" 1953-2003
American Indian Center Video
- Center presentation at the Smithsonian on the native/urban experience
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Albany Park, Chicago
Non-profit organizations based in Chicago
Native American history of Illinois
Native American organizations
Cultural centers in Chicago
1953 establishments in Illinois
Organizations established in 1953