Voice of the Tribes, 20: A History of the National Tribal Chairmen's Association

Scholars of Native American history have focused considerable attention on Red Power activists and organizations, whose confrontational style of advocacy helped expose the need for Indian policy reform. Lost in the narrative, though, are the achievements of elected leaders who represented the nation's federally recognized tribes. In this book, historian Thomas A. Britten fills that void by demonstrating the important role that the NTCA, as the self-professed "voice of the tribes," played in the evolution of federal Indian policy.

During the height of its influence, according to Britten, the NTCA helped implement new federal policies that advanced tribal sovereignty, protected Native lands and resources, and enabled direct negotiations between the United States and tribal governments. While doing so, NTCA chairs deliberately distanced themselves from such well-known groups as the American Indian Movement (AIM), branding them as illegitimate--that is, not "real Indians"--and viewing their tactics as harmful to meaningful reform.

Based on archival sources and extensive interviews with both prominent Indian leaders and federal officials of the period, Britten's account offers new insights into American Indian activism and intertribal politics during the height of the civil rights movement.