Wilma Mankiller and Me

AROUND THE CAMPFIRE
By Dr. Dean Chavers
© Copyright, 2010



I first met Wilma Mankiller in the spring of 1969. Lee Brightman, the original angry Indian radical, had a half dozen of us picketing the consulate of Ecuador in San Francisco. Some soldiers had invited some Indians to a picnic on a Sunday, put poison in the Kool Aid, and killed 21 of them.

The government was not going to indict or try the soldiers, so we were mad. Lee was the head of Native American Studies at UC Berkeley and the rest of us were students. At noon this young lady walked up and said, “What are you guys doing?” We told her, she picked up a sign, and walked with us instead of going to lunch.

Somebody said, “What is your name?” and she answered “Wilma Olaya.” She told us she was working as a legal secretary, and that her husband Hugo was an accountant. That’s how I met Wilma Mankiller. She was 23 years old.

Eight months later 78 Indian students took over Alcatraz Island. Wilma came out the next week, and stayed off and on for months. It changed her life. She had gone to the Bay Area with her family on Relocation 15 years before. After Alcatraz she wanted to become involved in Indian affairs, and Olaya wanted her to be a housewife. It led to their divorce.

Wilma then became involved in the struggle of the Pit River people for the return of some of their land. Richard Oakes and I spent six months in 1970 with these wonderful strong people. Wilma volunteered at their attorney’s office; his name was Aubrey Grossman. This work opened her eyes to what was going on in the Indian world.

The next time I saw Wilma, she was running the Indian Education program in the Oakland Public Schools. She had quit her legal secretary job, and had started to college. It took her almost a decade, but she earned her degree after she moved back home.

Ross Swimmer was running for office in 1975 when he visited Oakland. There are so many Cherokees on the West Coast that candidates for Chief have to campaign from Phoenix and Tucson to Seattle. Ross won, and he talked Wilma into coming home the next year. He clearly saw her potential. He promised her a job writing grants and helping rural Cherokee communities. She brought running water, indoor plumbing, and electricity into many of these communities.

They appreciated it. The Bell community was the most written about of these communities. The community is made up mostly of full-bloods who have been dumped on by the government for decades. They loved their running water. Wilma got a grant to help them put it in.

When Ross asked Wilma to run for Vice Chief in 1983, she had stiff opposition. J. B. Dreadfulwater and Agnes Cowan ran against her, but Wilma won. I visited the tribal office in the spring of 1983 and she was in her office packing boxes. “Are you moving?” I asked her.

“No,” she said. “I’m running for Vice Chief, and I have to quit my job. What do I have to do to win?”

“You have to wear out a lot of tennis shoes,” I told her. “We had a young man in our district running for State Senate, and he and his mother said they went to every house in the district. You have to shake people’s hands, ask them for their vote, and smile a lot.”

When I saw her after the election, she told me she had worn out four pairs of tennis shoes. She was tireless, and a tough campaigner.

When Reagan tapped Ross to be the head of the BIA, he left Wilma in charge as Principal Chief. She had some opposition at first, mostly from men, but strong support from women. When she ran in 1987 on her own for Principal Chief, she had some serious opposition—sugar in her gas tank, tires slashed, threatening phone calls, and the rest. But she persevered and won.

After she won she married Charlie Soap, who had long been a supporter. They lived in Wilma’s home at Mankiller Flats east of Tahlequah. Her daughters Felicia and Gina finished school and started to work.

She ran again in 1991, and this time won with hardly any opposition. She got 83% of the vote—an unprecedented lopsided victory. She got businesses started under the tribal government, reinvigorated the government itself, and win friends all over the world. One of these was Gloria Steinem, the famous author and head of the National Organization of Women (NOW).

Gloria was famous for saying “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” But at the advanced age of 60 she met a bicycle with millions of dollars, and married him—on Wilma’s front porch. They remained close friends until Wilma died on April6, 2010.

Wilma stepped down and did not run again when her term was up in 1995. But in her ten years she did more for the Cherokee people than any chief in history. She remained a fighter her whole life. The last time I saw her was when she was the commencement speaker at SIPI several years ago.

My friend Dr. Dot Witter e-mailed me early that morning to let me know about Wilma’s death. It cut right through to my heart. I had been warned a month earlier by someone who had let me know Charlie had told the press that Wilma had the final stages of pancreatic cancer.

Wilma was tough. She survived a head-on automobile collision in the hills of Oklahoma that killed her best friend, Mike Morris’s wife. Mike was head of the education department of the tribe when I was president of Bacone College. He sent some of his best students to Bacone, and took it really hard when he lost his wife.

She had kidney problems, and only survived with a kidney donated by one of her brothers. She also suffered from breast cancer, lymphoma and myasthenia gravis.

President Obama sent a statement to the family about how saddened he was to learn of Wilma’s passing. He reminded them that the White House had given her the highest honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She had been given many other honors, from women’s groups, national organizations, and civic groups. She was inducted into Halls of Fame nationally and in Oklahoma.

Lillian Tobacco (Lakota) from Pine Ridge was strongly moved by Wilma’s life. She called and told me, “I have admired Wilma for a long time. I would like to think that her legacy will live on in all Native women.”

Wilma wrote three books after she stepped down as Chief. These books are being used as texts by some of the best Indian schools.

Dr. Dean Chavers is Director of Catching the Dream, a Native scholarship organization. His latest books are “Modern American Indian Leaders” published by Mellen Press and “Racism in Indian Country” published by Peter Lang Publishers. Contact him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. His next book is “Broken Promises: Termination of Indian Treaties and the Aftermath,” due out in 2011.