Wilma Mankiller


The car with which George Robson won the Indy 500 of 1946

The 30th Indianapolis 500 was driven on Thursday, May 30, 1946 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. American driver George Robson won the race. Start Grid Race Externe link Father Charley Mankiller was a thoroughbred Cherokee Indian and her mother Irene had Irish and Dutch ancestors. The family lived in such poor conditions that Charley and Irene decided to move to the big city of San Francisco hoping to get better education and opportunities for their children. However, adapting to life in San Francisco did not match them. Wilma married young and got two daughters.

Meanwhile, she went to study and became active in the Native American Movement. She left her husband and found a job as a social worker at the Urban Indian Resource Center in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1977, she moved back to Oklahoma with her two daughters. She worked for the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and studied further. At the end of 1979 she was given an almost fatal car accident.

More than a year later, however, she returned to the Cherokee Nation and more decisive than ever to help improve the lives of poor Cherokee Indians in the countryside. Mankiller was asked to become deputy chief, and after chief Ross Schwimmer left, she became the first female leader of the Cherokee tribe in Oklahoma. Despite her opposition, she held up and was even re-elected twice as chief. Wilma Mankiller had been remarried with a thoroughbred Cherokee Indian, and worked hard for her people despite a sometimes falling health.

In addition, she was also president of the Arkansas Riverbed Authority and served two terms as president of the Inter-Tribal Council of Five Civilized Tribes (except the Cherokee are these the Creek, Seminole, Choctaw and Chickasaw, all five of these tribes originally originated from the southeast of the United States.) From President Clinton, Mankiller received the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom. Mankiller was chief until 1995.

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