Past News Items

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today issued the following statement on education programs for Indian children:

"Indian children in Federal schools are handicapped educationally, economically and geographically through physical and social isolation from the mainstreams of American life. Many are further handicapped by an only partial understanding of the English language, if, indeed, they speak English at all.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall said today that recent weeks had brought "heartening examples of solid economic gains for American Indians as the result of a determination to put tribal resources and energies to work for the benefit of all."

Udall approved plans last week for a multi-million dollar forest product complex on the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon that will create 250 jobs for Indians and bring about $2 million in annual revenues to the tribe.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today issued the following statement on the restoration of Fort McDowell in Arizona:

The Department of the Interior has recommended enactment of Federal legislation to establish a special three-judge Federal District Court to settle a disputed boundary between the Navajo and Ute Mountain Indian Tribes in New Mexico. Several millions of dollars are at stake.

The disputed area is a strip of land immediately south of the Colorado border approximately two miles wide and ten and one-half miles long. The United States holds the title to the area in trust for one of the two tribes and both claim it.

The dispute developed from the following facts:

The Department of the Interior has recommended to Congress enactment of legislation designed to amend the Indian Long-Term Leasing Act of 1955.

Art objects by the famed San Ildefonso Pueblo, N. M., potter, Maria Martinez, her son, Popovi Da, and her grandson, Tony Da, have been assembled for showing in the Department of the Interior's Art Galleries in Washington, D. C., May 16-June 30, Mrs. Stewart L. Udall, president of the Center for Arts of Indian America, announced today. The artists will be present in the Galleries at various times during the first week.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has signed a $12,000 contract with Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity, a non-profit organization with headquarters in Norman, Okla., to finance the recruiting of Indians for Peace Corps work in South America.

In announcing the contract today, Robert L. Bennett. Indian Affairs Commissioner, said: "We are. pleased to cooperate in a joint venture by the Peace Corps and the Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity that will open the doors to many American Indians for Peace Corps service."

American Indians, who still prize eagle feathers for ceremonial status, are joining the fight to save the national bird from extinction. The Red Lake Band of the Chippewa Tribe has designated its 400,000-acre reservation in north-central Minnesota as a Bald Eagle Sanctuary.

The Chippewa lands are on an important eagle migration route and have several active nests. Rare except in Alaska, bald eagles are one of the species Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall has designated for management and study under the Endangered Species Act of 1966.

A group of 120 Papago Indian children will join spring visitors to Washington on May 15 as the result of a lot of hard work and a determination to learn a little more about life beyond the reservation.

The children, junior high students from Oasis School in Sells, Ariz., on the Papago Reservation, will spend four days sightseeing, performing Indian dances and explaining Papago history, religion and culture to school and YMCA "Indian Guide" groups in the Capital area.

Sixty-seven Indian children found adoptive homes in 1966 through the Indian Adoption Project of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Child Welfare League of America. It was a record year for the project, which is conducted by the two agencies in cooperation with State and local welfare services and voluntary agencies.