Above: Very early on in the New Deal, funds started flowing towards American Indian infrastructure needs, for example, schools. The text above is part of a longer article from the newsletter Indians at Work, U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, November 15, 1933, pp. 32-33. Notice that the article highlights how New Deal / PWA-funded schools would be moving away from the infamous boarding schools.
A New Deal break in the inaction
In a Huffington Post article today, about crumbling American Indian schools, Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) stated, "We are trying to bring systematic change to the system that will impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of Native children. We can push Congress and we can push the administration to make these investments because that's how you move the system after hundreds of years of inaction."
Stansbury's sentiments are 100% spot-on. But her statement could use an additional sentence: "The New Deal was a break from that inaction, and we should have another New Deal for American Indian schools."
The Huffington Post article reports, "The appalling conditions faced by tribal schools and the children inside of them are a result of the U.S. government's failure to uphold its treaty obligations to Native American tribes, who gave up large swaths of land in exchange for the federal government guaranteeing investments in tribal communities to provide for their education and well-being. Congress has never provided sufficient funding for tribal schools, and their infrastructure shows it."
Again, we need a slight adjustment here. The New Deal Congress began to provide sufficient funding and attention for American Indian concerns, through the CCC, PWA, WPA, Indian Reorganization Act, Indian Arts and Crafts Board, and other programs. But, as in so many other instances, subsequent generations of Americans backslid into the same tired routine of inaction, neglect, and laziness. They stopped having concern for their American Indian fellow citizens. They dropped the New Deal baton that was handed to them.
In the modern era, Americans have decided that it is more important that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have enough money to build a private set of spaceships--so the super-rich can experience the ultimate thrill ride--than it is for Congress to provide sufficient funding for American Indian schools. It's a sick, demented set of priorities - but perhaps the inevitable outcome of a plutocracy populated by apathetic, misinformed, and in some cases, bigoted citizens.
(Also see, "Baltimore City Schools Without Air Conditioning Will Release Early Thursday," CBS Baltimore, June 2, 2022, and ask yourself: "How is it that, in the 21st century, so many K-12 schools don't have air conditioning - 120 years after the invention of air conditioning?)
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