Native American Hall of Fame

NATIONAL NATIVE AMERICAN H A L L O F FA M E

OUR MISSION: TO RECOGNIZE AND HONOR THE INSPIRATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF NATIVE AMERICANS IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.

1954 - Present

LOUISE ERDRICH

Turtle Mountain Chippewa 2019 - Writing

“MASSIVELY CONTRIBUTED TO WHAT IS KNOWN AS THE SECOND WAVE OF THE NATIVE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE AND HAS RECEIVED HIGHLY REGARDED LITERATURE AWARDS.”

Louise Erdrich - an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota, a federally recognized tribe of Ojibwe people - is a widely celebrated and beloved author.

She is an author of novels, poetry, and children’s books and is a renowned contemporary author of American literature. Erdrich has massively contributed to what is known as the second wave of the Native American Renaissance and has received highly regarded literature awards.

Erdrich was born June 7, 1954 in Little Falls, Minnesota and raised in Wahpeton, North Dakota by father Ralph Erdrich, who was German American, and mother Rita (Gourneau), Ojibwe and French; heritages she explores in her writing.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Dartmouth College in 1976 and her master’s degree in Writing Arts from Johns Hopkins University in 1979. She is also a recipient of an honorary doctorate from her alma mater Dartmouth College.

Erdrich’s literature career launched after her short story “The World’s Greatest Fisherman” won the 1982 Nelson Algren fiction prize.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Dartmouth College in 1976 and her master’s degree in Writing Arts from Johns Hopkins University in 1979. She is also a recipient of an honorary doctorate from her alma mater Dartmouth College.

Erdrich’s literature career launched after her short story “The World’s Greatest Fisherman” won the 1982 Nelson Algren fiction prize. This short story later influenced the basis of her first novel, “Love Medicine” (1984), which received the National Book Critics Circle Award. She then expanded “Love Medicine” into a tetralogy that includes novels “The Beet Queen” (1988), “Tracks” (1988),

and “The Bingo Palace” (1994). These novels explored the lives of Indian families who lived near a North Dakota reservation while they encountered and interacted with nearby white families. Erdrich’s recurring literature topics often explore Ojibwe, Indigenous peoples and histories, and the neighboring towns they inhabit. Erdrich’s novels are all primarily set in the same fictional location centered around the people who lived there throughout multiple generations.

Erdrich then committed her focus on exploring stories of German, Polish, and Scandinavian citizens of a North Dakota town in “The Master Butchers Singing Club” (2003). Her literature continued to educate and provide unique fictional insight to the histories of American heritage in the Midwest. Her next novel “The Plague of Doves” was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Fiction in 2009 and again blended the exploration of a Native American family and their white local inhabitants through the eyes of a young girl. In 2012 she was awarded the National Book Award for Fiction for her novel “The Round House,” a novel that explores the story of a Native American boy seeking justice for his mother that was attacked near the reservation. Erdrich also received the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction in 2015.

Her 2020 novel, “The Night Watchman,” which was influenced by Erdrich’s own grandfather and his commitment to his tribe, and provides a historical fiction exploration of the Indian termination policies of the 1940s-1960s, received the Pulitzer Prize in 2021.

Following her Pulitzer Prize, Erdrich published “The Sentence” (2021) which takes place during contemporary events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd. “The Sentence” follows the life of an Ojibwe woman recently released from the prison system who becomes employed at a bookstore that is haunted by a ghost.

In addition to her many successful literary works, Erdrich also has published poetry and children’s books. These books include “The Birchbark House” (1999) and “The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Birth Year” (1995), which is influenced by her experiences of motherhood.

Erdrich continues to write and owns a bookstore in Minneapolis, Minnesota named Birchbark Books. Her bookstore hosts events and literary readings that highlight local Native writers. Erdrich leads her bookstore with her booksellers as a “teaching bookstore” and in addition to books also sells Native American art and jewelry and installed a free seed library. She and her sister also founded a nonprofit publishing house that is connected to the bookstore.

The author resides with her daughters in Minnesota and proudly speaks of their involvement with her bookstore and their engagement in language revitalization and immersion for the Anishinaabe language. She also continues to emphasize environmentalism and focuses on decreasing our carbon footprint, as she herself has been witness to the climate impact on her traditional and heritage lands. Erdrich rejoices in what is considered the third wave of Native art and considers this a powerful time of multiple Native authors writing about their backgrounds, languages, culture and histories. She sees this time as an honor of Indigenous peoples’ politics, loved ones, traditional foods, histories, and the struggle of over 500 years of dispossession and violence.

Erdrich continues to take pride and joy in her Anishinaabeg people and other Indigenous people that contribute alongside her to the Native American art renaissance and considers her peers’ work very moving. Her upcoming novel, “The Mighty Red,” will debut October 2024 and delves into themes of love, spiritual forces, and a prairie community that encounters the challenges of natural resource depletion and economic crises.

Ben Nighthorse Campbell was no average legislator, members of Congress from both political parties said when the senator from Colorado retired from public life in 2005.

1933 - Present

BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL

Northern Cheyenne 2021 - Government

Campbell, a USA Judo Hall of Famer, subdued a man who pushed Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., in the Capitol subway in 1995.

He rode a red, white and blue motorcycle in the 2001 Inaugural Parade and convinced the Capitol Police to switch from foreignmade motorcycles to Harley-Davidsons. He designed and made jewelry that is in galleries and museum collections across the United States. “He is a renaissance man in every sense of the word,” Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, (R-Texas), said upon Campbell’s retirement.

Campbell was also a highly effective legislator, a fact that his colleagues credited to his ability to work across party lines to develop workable solutions to complex problems. Initially a Democrat, he changed his affiliation to Republican but maintained friendships on both sides of the aisle. Campbell contributed to “a collegiality and friendship in the Senate that crosses party lines,” Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said at the time.

Born Benny Campbell on April 13, 1933 in Auburn, California, about 34 miles northeast of Sacramento, his mother, Mary Vierra, emigrated from Portugal; his father, Albert Campbell, was Northern Cheyenne. Ben Campbell received the name Nighthorse at a namegiving ceremony on the Northern Cheyenne reservation.

Campbell’s father struggled with alcoholism and his mother was often hospitalized with tuberculosis; as a result the future senator and his sister spent much of their childhood in Catholic orphanages.

Campbell dropped out of Placer High School to join the U.S. Air

“HE SERVED IN THE U.S. SENATE FROM 1993-2005, THE FIRST NATIVE AMERICAN TO SERVE IN BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS.”

Force where he served from 1951-53, attained the rank of airman second class, and was awarded the Korean Service Medal and the Air Medal. He earned his GED and graduated from California State University at San Jose in 1957.

Campbell was a member of the San Jose State judo team, coached by future USA Olympic coach Yosh Uchida, then went on to study as a special research student at Meiji University in Tokyo, Japan, where he trained for the U.S. Olympic judo team.

Campbell credited the preparation and discipline taught at Meiji for his 1961, 1962 and 1963 U.S. National judo titles and his gold medal in the 1963 Pan-American Games. Campbell became the first Native American to make a U.S. Olympic judo team and competed in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. (He sustained an ankle injury and did not medal.)

In the years after returning from the Olympic Games, Campbell worked as a deputy sheriff in Sacramento County, coached the U.S. national judo team, operated his own dojo in Sacramento and taught high school physical education and art. He and his wife Linda, also raised quarterhorses; one of their horses, Sailors Night, was AQHA Supreme Champion.

The Campbells bought a ranch in 1978 near Ignacio, Colorado, on the Southern Ute Reservation. He served in the state House of Representatives from 1983-86 and represented Colorado’s 3rd District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 19871993. He served in the U.S. Senate from 1993-2005, the first Native American to do so in both houses of Congress. He was also the first Native American to serve as chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

Campbell and his native roots left a lasting legacy. The Lumbee Tribe was recognized by the U.S. government, thanks in part to Campbell’s advocacy. The Southern Ute Indian Tribe’s access to Colorado River water is guaranteed. Water diversions from the Arkansas River are regulated. The Great Sand Dunes and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison are national parks. The National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. was created all because of Campbell’s support and work for Native rights.

He also argued for a balanced budget and sponsored legislation that provided police officers with bullet-proof vests and farmers with assistance during drought. Fifty-five Indian Country related bills he wrote became law. In the 106th Congress, Campbell wrote more bills that became laws than any other member of Congress.

Campbell retired from public service in 2005 because of health reasons. In his farewell remarks, he praised the dedication of his colleagues – remarks that reflected his own view of how Congress should work.

“Mr. President, since I am retiring at the end of this term, after 22 years in public office, let me say in all honesty that, regardless of party, I have never in my life met a more dedicated, caring group of men and women, who are not only my colleagues but also my friends,” he said addressing the vice president, who serves as president of the Senate.

“We may have our disagreements, but each in our own way, we know in our hearts that we are trying our best to do the right thing for our Nation.”

1908 - 2008

MARY GOLDA ROSS

Cherokee Nation 2019 – Science

“SHE SHOWED EVERYONE THAT REGARDLESS OF WHO YOU ARE, YOU CAN ACCOMPLISH GREAT THINGS AS LONG AS YOU ARE DETERMINED TO SUCCEED.”

Mary Golda Ross (Cherokee Nation), was a space age pioneer and trailblazer, not only for Native American women, but for all women.

She was the first female engineer in the history of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation.

Lockheed sent Ross to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to attain certification in engineering, a first for a Native American woman. At UCLA she studied mathematics for modern engineering, aeronautics and missile and celestial mechanics.

Ross was born in 1908 in Park Hill, Oklahoma, the daughter of William Wallace Ross, Jr. and Mary Henrietta Moore Ross. Her greatgreat grandfather John Ross was chief of the Cherokee Nation during the era of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Thousands of Cherokee people were forced to walk from their ancestral homes in the American southeast to Indian Territory - now Oklahoma that was called the “Trail of Tears.”

She was one of the 40 founding engineers, and the only Native American and woman, on the team of Lockheed’s highly secretive Advanced Development Programs that became known as the “Skunk Works” Project.

In 1928 she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics at Northeastern State Teachers College in Tahlequah, Oklahoma (now Northeastern State University). Ross continued her education at Colorado State Teachers College (now the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado), obtaining a master’s degree in 1938. Her major fields of study included Astronomy and Mathematics.

She became an educator after receiving her first degree and taught for nearly 10 years in public schools. She later taught at the Santa Fe Indian School, a government-run boarding school in New Mexico.

As a mathematician for Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in 1942, Ross helped design the P-38 Lightning fighter plane, the first aircraft that traveled over 400 miles per hour. While studying the effects of pressure on the aircraft, Ross solved design issues involved with high speed flight using a pencil, slide rule and Friden computer.

While at Lockheed, Ross contributed to the design and development of the Agena rocket, which was used as a target vehicle and for launching satellites. She was also instrumental in the research and performance evaluation of ballistic missiles and other new defense technology with Lockheed’s new Missiles and Space branch. She made important discoveries for advancing technologies including developing specific criteria for the Polaris, Poseidon and Trident Missiles that could be fired from submarines, weapons that played a critical role in the Cold War. Ross was a highly accomplished engineer whose contributions ranged from rocket design to missile development. She developed operational requirements for spacecraft that would later be vital to the Apollo program with crewed and uncrewed space travel. She also contributed to the third volume of NASA’s interplanetary flight book, that detailed spacecraft flight plans to Mars and Venus.

A legend in the industry, Ross worked at Lockheed until her retirement in 1973. During her years of retirement, she recruited young women and Native Americans to engineering careers. At the age of 96, she wore a traditional Cherokee dress to the opening

ceremonies of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, D.C. She was a charter member of the Society of Women Engineers as well as a supporter of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society and the Council of Energy Resource Tribes.

In 1982, she was awarded the Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award. In 2018, she was posthumously inducted into the International Air and Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.

Upon her death in 2008, Ross left a $400,000 endowment to the NMAI. In 2019, she was depicted on the $1 coin by the U.S. Mint as they celebrated American Indians in the Space Program.

Her legacy is an inspiration to all women, especially women in the engineering field. She showed everyone that regardless of who you are, you can accomplish great things as long as you are determined to succeed. Ross’s incredible achievements continue to inspire students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) to break barriers, persevere and achieve success.

At a time when women engineers were a rarity, Ross paved the way for a more diverse and inclusive industry.

Reflecting on her career in an interview at age 91, Ross said, “I have been lucky to have had so much fun. It has been an adventure all the way.”

1933 - 2005

VINE DELORIA, JR. Standing Rock Sioux 2018 - Writing

“DELORIA BECAME A CENTRAL FIGURE IN THE MASSIVE MOVEMENT FOR TRIBAL SELF DETERMINATION, WHICH IS NOW RECOGNIZED IN TRIBAL, FEDERAL AND INTERNATIONAL LAW.”

Vine Deloria Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux) was a highly accomplished author, theologian, historian and activist for Native American rights. Deloria is widely known for his book “Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto” (1969). From 1964 to 1967, he served as the executive director for the National Congress of American Indians, where he increased their membership of 19 tribes to 156 and expanded the program through financial decline and internal division. Deloria helped create the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Institute, sat as a board member and was highly dedicated to the repatriation and protection of Native American remains. Deloria was named by Time magazine as one of the “primary movers and shapers” of religious thought.

He was born in 1933 in Martin, South Dakota near the Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to Vine Victor Deloria Sr. and his mother Barbara Sloat. Deloria shared in his book “Singing for Spirit: A Portrait of the Dakota Sioux,” that he was a grandson of a shaman and the son of an Espisopalian minister. After graduating from a college preparatory school in 1941, he went on to serve in the Marines for several years. He then began his academic career at Iowa State University where, in 1958, he earned a bachelor’s degree in General Science. His graduate career included a masters degree in Theology from the Lutheran School of Technology in 1963 and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the University of Colorado Law School in 1970.

Deloria began his teaching career at Western Washington University College of Ethnic Studies where he advocated fiercely for the treaty and finishing rights of local Native American tribes. He was a major contributor to the legal case that led to the historic U.S. vs. Washington trial, better known as the Boldt Decision, which succeeded in establishing Indian fishing rights in Washington state, after years of cessation of millions of acres from tribes’ to the United States in the 1850s. He continued on at the University of Arizona as a tenured professor of Political Science where he established the very first master’s degree program in American Indian studies.

In 1969, Deloria published “Custer Died for your Sins: An Indian Manifesto,” which was the first of more than 20 books he would pen in his writing career. As Deloria’s most famous book, it is considered one of the most outstanding works written on American Indian affairs. In his book, he tackles Indigenous stereotypes and challenges white audiences to a new insight into the history of

United States colonization and violent abuse of American Indians.

The book was released the same year as the Alcatraz Red Power movement and helped bring attention to the recognition of tribal sovereignty of Indian tribes. Deloria became a central figure in the massive movement for tribal self determination, which is now recognized in tribal, federal and international law.

Devoted to his craft, Deloria continued to publish articles and books across fields of law, education, anthropology, philosophy and religion. Another majorly impactful book of Deloria’s is “God is Red,” published in 1973. The book became an important introspection on Native American religious views, inquiring readers to challenge conventional views about the human species and our responsibility to the natural world.

In 1995, Deloria published “Red Earth, White Lies,” where he challenges the mainstream scientific theories of the ancestral world views of Native Americans. He offered an alternative insight into the North American continent’s prehistoric history and warned future scientists against the continuation of ethnocentrism and dismissing Native oral traditions as merely myths. Deloria distinguished the dialectics of Western religion’s materialism and that of Indigenous spiritual and place based religions. He asserted that Indigenous epistemologies and worldviews included equal weight of wisdom, ecological sustainability, history, anthropology, politics and spiritual wellness. Deloria appeared in various documentaries, television programs and speaking engagements across the world.

Deloria was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Natives Writers’ circle of the Americas in 1996 and the Wallace Stegner Award from the University of Colorado in 2002. In 1999, the Library at the National Museum of the American Smithsonian was named after him.

Deloria retired in 2002, yet continued to write, give presentations and lecture. He died on November 13, 2005 in Golden, Colorado and is survived by his wife and children.

Charles Wilkinson, a Colorado Law professor remarked, “The tribal sovereignty movement had no single great inspirational leader, yet if one person may be singled out it is Vine Deloria, Jr.” Deloria’s legacy will forever be prominent in politics, religious thought, academia and American Indian law.