The collection consists of documents from LaDonna Harris' personal life as an activist and from AIO's four decades of operation as a non-profit organization involved in advocacy and development projects related to the needs and rights of Native Americans. The contents of this collection range from Ms. Harris' early years as an activist and wife of U.S. Senator Fred Harris in the 1960s, to her founding of AIO in 1970, and running AIO through the 1990s, to AIO's continued operation under the direction of her daughter, Laura Harris, in the early 2000s. The collection documents AIO's principal activities, including organizing conferences, seminars, workshops, and other programs for Native American tribes and governmental agencies. Major initiatives include: partnerships for the Protection of Tribal Environments; Governance project; Family Systems project; Tribal Issues Management System; Toward an Understanding of Rural Economies; IndianNet; and the Ambassadors Program. Additionally, AIO was instrumental in the formation of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes, American Indian Telecommunications Consortium, Tribal Association of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. The collection contains correspondence, proposals, seminar materials, and publications related to these and other AIO projects. The collection also features material from governments (federal, state, municipal, and tribal) and civil society organizations with which AIO worked. As such, the collection offers a record of the activist groups and governmental agencies that operated in the same milieu as AIO.
Visit the LaDonna Harris Papers and Americans for Indian Opportunity Records finding aid for more information on the physical collection these documents came from.
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Colonization of Indian Economy
LaDonna Harris
This is a paper presentation about the historical disadvantage of tribal economy in relation to Federal and non-Indian economic and business structure. It includes figures and graphs representing the multiplier effect of each dollar coming out of the reservations that benefit external communities but not the tribal economy and development.
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Competing Sovereignties in North America and the Right-Wing and Anti-Indian Movement
Center for World Indigenous Studies
This is a copy of a publication by the Center for World Indigenous Studies on Competing sovereignties in North America and the Right-wing and Anti-Indian movement: Preliminary findings of the Right-Wing Extremism and the Anti-Indian Network Project, issued on January 13, 1988.
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Custer’s Revenge Video Game
National Board YWCA, OHOYO Research Center, and Lutheran Council in the USA
This file contains correspondence of various women’s civil rights organizations and American Tribal organizations calling for the ban of the “Custer’s revenge video game”. The aforementioned video game depicts a sexual assault against an Indian woman by an American soldier before being hit by an arrow. Also, copy of a printed newsletter by the OHOYO Tribe and some newspaper clippings are included.
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Dealing With Developers
Charles Lipton
This file contains a set of papers prepared by Charles Lipton International attorney to AIO explaining concessions and negotiations in mineral development, mining companies, investment, conditions, and preferences in setting contracts for mineral exploitation in developing countries and American Indian lands. There is also a description of government strategies and techniques for negotiating contracts and concessions for mineral extraction. An attached copy of a published article on Fiscal aspects of negotiating Third World mineral development agreements by the same author is included in this set.
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Decisions, Decisions: Indian Control of Indian Resources
Maggie Grover
This file contains a set of papers based on a series of seminars and research conducted by Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) for Indian tribal decision makers articulates the problems that tribal decision makers must deal with, to supply information that may be useful in making future decisions concerning Indian control on Indian resource development.
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Development Priorities
Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO)
This is a to-do list of actions and strategies to get support and positive outcomes from their Self-determination proposal
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Dineh Cooperatives Incorporated: Investigating the Navajo Nation
LaDonna Harris
This is a booklet prepared for the Navajo tribe describing Dineh cooperatives, incorporated and its 12 major project areas as of May 1984. A brief summary at the beginning of each section is presented supplemented by additional materials for those who wish greater detail.
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Education
Author Unknown
This file contains copies of memoranda, resolutions, certifications, agreements, statutes, a plan of action, magazines on Native American Peoples’ education, a directory, and newspaper clippings focusing on American Indian education. Attachments include California Indian Education Association newsletters on the Reburial of American Indian Skeletal Remains, a copy of the agreement between the Chippewa Tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a report on the Status of Indian Tribes or Tribal organizations under elementary and secondary education statutes- the U.S Department of Education, National Advisory Council on Indian Education-Newsletter, a copy of a sample of Pathways to Choices: Curriculum Guide for Native Peoples, Gadugui: A model of service-learning for Native American Communities, Drafts of Federal comprehensive Indian Education Policy Statement 1996, a copy of a Spring 1998 printed issue of Cultural Survival magazine dedicated to the education challenges of American Indian education, an article on the treatment of American Indians in the literature and classroom by Cornel Pewewardy published in the Equity and Excellence in Education journal, April 1998, and some copies of articles related to multicultural understanding of Native American children’s education.
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Energy and Natural Resources: A Statement of LaDonna Harris Before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the United States Senate
LaDonna Harris
This is a statement of LaDonna Harris presented before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the United States Senate on January 8, 1981 to express the Native American leaders’ concern about President elect R. Reagan’s intention to appoint James G. Watt as Secretary of the Interior.
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Envisioning the Future of Tribal America – Luncheon
LaDonna Harris
This file contains communications and invitations to the ‘Envisioning the future of Tribal America’ luncheon hosted by LaDonna Harris on Wednesday October 19, 1988 from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm in the Breakfast Room of the University Club, 1 West 54th Street, New York, NY.
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EPA – Partners of Protection of Tribal Environments
Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) and EPA
This is a set of two copies of reports on the EPA/Tribal Leaders Environmental Forums entitled: ‘Partners for the Protection of Tribal Environments’ and the ‘EPA-Tribal Leaders Workshop’. The first copy of a final report covers activities undertaken by Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) under a contract from the Environmental Protection Agency to identify barriers to the protection of the environment on and around Tribal lands and to facilitate the development of options for overcoming those barriers. The second report aims to enhance tribes’ ability to be proactive rather than reactive, to identify strategic options, and find a way to act, problem solve, and accomplish goals.
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Evaluation of the Albuquerque Area Teen Centers and to Develop a Model
Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO)
This is a copy of a Contract Technical Proposal on the Evaluation of the Albuquerque Area Teen Centers and to Develop a Model. Relying on the Family Systems Project, this proposed study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Albuquerque Teen Centers and support programs to improve Native American youth’s mental health and prevent other diseases in this community. Included in this file are communications and application forms pertinent to this proposal.
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Excerpts from the Report for the Van Ameringen Foundation on AIO's Family System Project
LaDonna Harris
This synthesized report on AIO's Family Systems Project contains a background of research conducted by AIO on emotional dynamics in a tribe and the tribe's families; the power of Family Systems Analysis, an approach more in line with knowledge based on Family systems theory and Tribal consensus-building systems; key issues and concepts in tribal dynamics; future steps; and appendixes on North American Tribal Kinship systems from the social origins of private life.
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Family Systems Project for the American Indian Health Service: Phase II
Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO)
This is a project to investigate the appropriateness of a family systems initiative in Native American communities. This project is based on the assumption that the epidemic levels of alcohol and substance abuse, suicide, and adult onset diabetes are all symptomatic of underlying stress caused by 500 years of unresolved cultural clash between tribal and Euro-American culture. Besides appendixes, drafts, and correspondence related to the project, a copy of a published Wingspread Report is attached to this document.
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Fashion Designers
Anne-Marie Schiro
This file contains two news clippings about Native American fashion designer JoAnna Wabisca and her fashion project to provide work and pride to the Cheyenne Tribe.
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For Some of Our Friends and Others
Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO)
This is a copy of an AIO red paper entitled ‘For some of our friends and others: Indian Tribes are separate government units’ discussing Native American tribes’ self-government, dual citizenship, dual entitlement, self-determination, contributions to the over-all economy, serving the interests of non-Indians, and cooperation.
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Fort Sill Indian School
Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO)
This is a copy of a special notice requesting the Senate Budget Committee to support and keep Fort Sill School in Lawton, Oklahoma open.
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From Council Fires to Computers: Computer Assisted Consensus Building Within Tribes Between Tribes and Between Tribal and Non-Tribal Governments
Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO)
This is a concept paper on the development and training of an Indian Interactive Management team in Native American country presented to the Administration for Native Americans. In this paper it is explained how a computer assisted discussion process called Interactive Management (IM) can enable a group of people with highly contrastive perspectives to come together and solve problems because the IM values the differences in perspective and sees them as contributions.
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Getting a Fair Deal in Mining Projects
Stephen Zorn
This paper summarizes a number of different ways in which resource owners, including both Native American tribes and developing country governments can obtain a fair share of the value of these resources when they are exploited.
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Handbook to Federal Responsibility to Indian Communities in Areas of Environmental Protection and Individual Health and Safety
LaDonna Harris and Maggie Gover
This handbook summarizes AIO's research on the roles of government agencies charged with the responsibility for various aspects of environmental protection and individual safety. It is the purpose of this handbook to increase the awareness of Indian tribal decision makers of the environmental health impacts of development activities, the need in planning for protection from these impacts and where federal assistance could be obtained for such efforts.
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Hard Choices: Development of Non-Energy Non-Replenishable Resources
Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO)
This is an AIO report that summarizes the seminar on Development of non-energy non-replenishable resources in Native American territories. The purpose of the seminar was to examine the problems and questions involved in the development of non-fuel minerals via round tables that involved participants from energy tribes and non-fuel tribes to share information, establish policy, and inter-tribal communications through the Council of Energy Resource Tribes.
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Indian Child Welfare
Author Unknown
This file contains correspondence of American for Indian Opportunities, a bibliography on Native American Child and Family Welfare by William B. Collinge in the American Indian/Alaska Native Program School of Social Welfare at UC Berkley, a copy of the Joseph and Josephine A. et al. vs. The New Mexico Department of Human Services Consent Decree on Native American Children Welfare, Congressional records on American Child Welfare Act Amendments, communications.
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Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978
Author Unknown
This file contains a copy of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare’s Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 including questions and answers which highlight provisions of the Act and its impact on services to American Indian children and their families. Letters and memoranda of the Association of American Indian and Alaska Native Social Workers, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the National Congress of American Indians concerning suggestions for the development of the rules and regulations for the Indian Child Welfare Act, a draft rules and regulations on the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, a copy of the Recommended draft rules and regulations for The Indian Child Welfare Act and a copy of the Handbook Indian Child Welfare Act: Studies for American Indian Court Judges are also included.
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Indian Claims Caucus
LaDonna Harris
This is an abstract of the American Indian Caucus on the impact of the Indian Claims Judgment Funds Act of 1973, held at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Denver, Colorado on December 12, 1973.
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Indian Definition
LaDonna Harris
This is a copy of a testimony submitted to the Office of Health, Education, and Welfare on Indian Definition. An explanation of how complex it is to define American Indian by the federal government and its policies opens a discussion of Indian nations, Indian membership, and the politics of identity.
