By statute or Presidential Proclamation, every year Native American Heritage Month is celebrated in November to honor the history, culture, traditions, and achievements of Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and affiliated Island communities. Congress chose November because it is the end of the harvest and a time of Thanksgiving and celebration by Native Americans.  (Read the 2024 Presidential Proclamation on National Native American Heritage Month).

 

The first federal recognition of Native American Heritage Month was in 1990, but its roots trace back to the early 1900s when a Seneca archaeologist Dr. Arthur C. Parker who was the director of the Museum of Arts and Science in Rochester, NY, fought for a federal recognition day.

He persuaded the Boy Scouts of America to set aside a day for the "First Americans" and for three years they adopted such a day. In 1915, the annual Congress of the American Indian Association meeting in Lawrence, Kansas, formally approved a plan concerning American Indian Day. It directed its president, Rev. Sherman Coolidge, an Arapahoe, to call upon the country to observe such a day. Coolidge issued a proclamation on Sept. 28, 1915, which declared the second Saturday of each May as an American Indian Day and contained the first formal appeal for recognition of Indians as citizens.

In 1990 President George H. W. Bush approved a joint resolution designating November 1990 "National American Indian Heritage Month." Similar proclamations, under variants on the name (including "Native American Heritage Month" and "National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month") have been issued each year since 1994.

What started at the turn of the century as an effort to gain a day of recognition for the significant contributions the first Americans made to the establishment and growth of the U.S., has resulted in a whole month being designated for that purpose. Through discovering the history, culture, traditions, and contributions of individuals and tribes, the public can learn about the unique challenges and incredible resilience of this population.

 

*The race alone population includes respondents who reported only one response, such as Native Village of Barrow Inupiat Traditional Government, and no other response.

**The race alone or in any combination population includes individuals who gave one response, such as Native Village of Barrow Inupiat Traditional Government, and those who reported multiple responses like Native Village of Barrow Inupiat Traditional Government and Arctic Slope Corporation or Native Village of Barrow Inupiat Traditional Government and Black or African American.

 

The Library of Congress has resources on the rich ancestry and traditions of Native Americans.

 

A History of Native Voting Rights provides a brief history of the difficulties Native Americans have faced in voting since the passage of the 14th Amendment.

Listen to voices of Native American people through of few of their conversations at Storycorps.