CHEROKEE TRIBAL LEADER WILMA MANKILLER BORN
Mankiller, born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, grew up in San Francisco. In the 1960s, she became active in Native American issues. In the mid-1970s, Wilma worked for the Cherokee Nation (Nation) as a planner and program developer. In 1983, Mankiller was elected deputy chief of the Nation and, in 1985, named principal chief—the 1st woman to serve in that capacity. A popular leader focused on improving the Nation’s government, healthcare, and education systems, Wilma was reelected in 1987 and 1991. Due to ill health, she did not seek re-election in 1995, but taught at Dartmouth College. She published a 1993 autobiography, Mankiller: A Chief and Her People, as well as Every Day Is a Good Day: Reflections by Contemporary Indigenous Women (2004). Wilma received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998 and, in October 2018, posthumously became one of the first class of inductees into the National Native American Hall of Fame. Mankiller died on April 6, 2010, in Adair County, Oklahoma.
Source: “Wilma Mankiller-Biography,” Biography, 4/1/2014. Retrieved 6/26/2019, https://www.biography.com/people/wilma-mankiller-214109
Photo: White House Television, 1/15/1998. Clinton Presidential Library. Public Domain.
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