Native Americans in America’s Wars

While November is National Native American Heritage month, the related events often don’t do justice to the true significance of Native Americans in U.S. culture. To counter this shortcoming, the Sequoyah National Research Center (SNRC) has just been awarded a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council to support their upcoming “Native Americans in America’s Wars” event. The event, a collaboration with the Arkansas History Commission (AHC) led by SNRC director Dr. Daniel Littlefield, aims to educate attendees about the crucial role of Native Americans in defending America since the Revolutionary War.

The $1,425 grant will enable the SNRC and the AHC to hold a full morning of presentations from three different humanities scholars, Dr. Mary Jane Warde—the featured speaker—Erin Fehr, and Dr. Robert Sanderson. The November event will be free, open to the public, and targeted towards veterans, active duty military members, and educators. Through the program, the presenters seek to “broaden the audience’s knowledge of American Indians as part of modern American society,” says Littlefield.

Dr. Warde will discuss Native American participation in the Civil War; next, Erin will present on the Alaska Territorial Guard’s role in World War II; finally, Dr. Sanderson will talk about his project of recording the experiences of Native American Vietnam veterans. After these featured lectures, Dr. Littlefield, the Ottenheimer Library’s Karen Russ, and the AHC’s Jane Wilkerson will give attendees an overview of additional related resources available at their institutions for the public.

Informational handouts will be passed out at the event and, afterwards, will be used by the SNRC to develop middle and high school curriculum materials. The need for this kind of educational resource is great; according to Dr. Littlefield, “when institutions, especially schools, seek to bring awareness to Native American heritage, their planners rarely get beyond the stereotyped image of nineteenth-century Indians.” The event and the resources it generates will challenge this trend and enrich students’, educators’, and veterans’ understanding of the role of Native Americans in U.S. history.

All are invited to attend the event on November 14 in Stabler Hall, room 107, at 9:00 a.m.

This project is supported in part by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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