Most people in this country today agree that indigenous tribes, who lived in the Americas before Europeans arrived, were treated less than fairly by their new neighbors. Unfortunately, the inequitable and inconsistent policies with regard to Native tribes are not strictly a thing of colonial or even early American history. Even into the second half of the 20^th century, the federal government implemented new versions of its on-again/off-again assimilation policies. These policies, often implemented without a full understanding of the differences between the tribes’ cultures and ways of self governance, proved to be hugely detrimental to the various tribal ways of life. Luckily, there has been a tremendous amount of resiliency shown in response.

Last week, as representatives from every Oklahoma tribe gathered in Washington DC for a Native American Summit, I gathered with the rest of my Leadership Oklahoma class in Tahlequah to learn more about Native American issues in Oklahoma. Read the rest of this entry »

In addition to the multiple funding streams made available to state governments by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), tribal governments are also in line to receive substantial assistance for programs serving Native Americans. This website of the National Congress of American Indians provides detailed and comprehensive information, including a handy tribal summary spreadsheet (PDF) available for download. As with state governments, tribes will receive some funds through formula allocations, while in other cases, tribal governments will be eligible to apply along with other government entities for competitive grants.

For Oklahoma, tribal funding can amount to considerable sums of money. For example, in the case of housing, Oklahoma’s formula-based allocation allocated to native housing authorities through the Native American Housing Block Grant is $37.4 million, which is considerably more than the $25.1 million going to non-native public housing authorities in Oklahoma through the Public Housing Capital Fund.