Wilma Mankiller (1945 - )
Quick Facts Birth: 1945   Year Inducted: 1993   Achievement In: Government		As the powerful, visionary first woman Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, Wilma Mankiller is responsible for 139,000 people and a $69 million budget. Mankiller spent her formative years in San Francisco, where she learned about the women's movement and organizing. When she returned to her native Oklahoma, Mankiller used her skills to help the Cherokee Nation, starting community self-help programs and teaching people ways out of poverty. In 1983 she ran for deputy chief of the Nation, and in 1985 Mankiller became Principal Chief, a position she holds today. Mankiller has brought about important strides for the Cherokees, including improved health care, education, utilities management and tribal government. Future plans call for attracting higher-paying industry to the area, improving adult literacy, supporting women returning to school and more. Mankiller also lives in the larger world, active in civil rights matters, lobbying the federal government and supporting women's activities and issues. She says: "We've had daunting problems in many critical areas, but I believe in the old Cherokee injunction to 'be of a good mind.' Today it's called positive thinking." Additional Resources:Harris, Jo D. A Brief Interview with Chief Mankiller. Lewiston, Idaho: Confluence Press in association with Women's Action Committee, Lewis-Clark State College, 1996. Mink, Gwendolyn, Marysa Navarro, and Gloria Steinem, editors. The Reader's Campanion to U.S. Women's History. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998. Yannuzzie, Della A. Wilma Mankiller: Leader of the Cherokee Nation. Hillside, New Jersey: Enslow Publishers, 1994. NOTES: Juvenile Literature. Editor with Vine Deloria, Barbara Deloria, Kristen Foehner, and Sam Scinta. Spirit & Reason: The Vine Deloria, Jr., Reader. Fulcrum Pub., 1999. With Michael Wallis (contributor). Mankiller: a Chief and her People. St. Martin's Press, 1994.

Wilma Mankiller

The first female chief of the Cherokee Nation, she took tragedy and illness and made strength. And don't even ask where she got her name.

By Andrew Nelson

Once chief, Mankiller took the traditional "women's issues" of education and health care and made them tribal priorities. She raised $20 million to build a much-needed infrastructure for schools and other projects, including an $8 million job-training center. The largest Cherokee health clinic was started under her tenure in Stilwell, Okla., and is now named in her honor. Mankiller also sought to reunite the Eastern Cherokee, a group based in North Carolina, with the larger Western division.

She ruled with grace and humor -- she often teased patronizing Anglos by telling them her surname was due to her reputation; in fact, "Mankiller" is a Cherokee military term for a village protector -- and with organizational smarts learned in the blue-collar neighborhoods of clapboard and "ethnic politics" that circled San Francisco Bay.

Her journey -- from complacency to activism to political power -- followed a familiar boomer flight path, but hers was a working woman's ascendancy. It was born in the rural grit of Adair County, Okla., and the tough industrial neighborhood of San Francisco's Hunters Point. Elite, tree-shaded suburbs like Pasadena or Grosse Pointe that shaped so many '60s radicals couldn't have been more remote to Mankiller.

Mankiller grew up on her father Charley's ancestral Oklahoma lands. "Dirt poor" was how she described her early life. The Mankillers frequently ate suppers of squirrel and other game. The house had no electricity. Her parents used coal oil for illumination.

Wilma Mankiller became the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1985.


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