The passing of Vine Deloria, Jr.

November 15, 2005 / Remembering a Native American intellectual and activist.

Vine Deloria Jr., Champion of Indian Rights, Dies at 72 (NYT)

A sad day for indigenous politics. Vine Deloria, Jr.’s Custer Died For Your Sins, published in 1969, was a manifesto for Native American activism that forever changed the landscape of indigenous relations in the United States. Deloria was an inspiring and tireless champion of Native rights whose interventions focussed critical attention on both the material and symbolic dimensions of injustice faced by indigenous peoples. He set a standard of politically infused scholarship that is both difficult to match and worthy of emulation, and he will be fiercely remembered.

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