Wilma Mankiller
When Wilma Mankiller was 11 years old the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs had decided to encourage poor Indians to move to the city. Wilma moved to San Francisco and had a bad experience. She did not want to live in the city because she grew up in the open.
In 1969, Wilma joined the American Indian Movement because she believed that America had forgotten about the Indians. In 1976, she moved back to Oklahoma and took a job working for the Cherokee Nation. Her work was to help Cherokee people learn to help themselves. In 1985 she was chosen the first woman to be chief of the Cherokee tribe. She helped the Indians of her tribe to become successful. She is still alive today and continuing her work. "I have a lot of faith in our ability to solve our own problems," Wilma says.
1998, by Joey, fourth grade
