Choctaw Nation Chief reflects on 50th anniversary of Indian Self-Determination Act
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, the third-largest tribe in the country with more than 225,000 members, is about a two-hour drive from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex in Southeast Oklahoma. CBS News Texas reporter Dawn White sat down with Chief Gary Batton of the Choctaw Nation to discuss what the act means for Indigenous people.
DURANT, Oklahoma — January marks the 50th anniversary of the Indian Self-Determination Education and Assistance Act, which gave power back to federally recognized Native American tribes to govern themselves.
The Choctaw Nation headquarters is in Durant, Oklahoma, but the Choctaw people's ancestral homeland was mainly in Mississippi until they were forced west during the Trail of Tears.
What happened to the Choctaw people stirs up painful emotions for Chief Gary Batton.
"The termination period, which happened between 1830 all the way up until 1975, is when we went to boarding schools. We lost our language. We lost our history, our culture," Batton said.
Tens of thousands of Native American children were removed from their homes and forced to attend boarding school, where they often lost their culture and suffered abuse.
Batton said the U.S. government held control over Indigenous tribes in other ways.
"From 1830 until 1979 is when the president of the United States appointed our chief, and guess what? If you didn't follow their politics, that chief would be at they would appoint somebody new," Batton said.
The Indian Self-Determination Education and Assistance Act, a massive step toward tribes' freedom, became law in January 1975.
"It has allowed us to embrace our sovereignty again, to help us direct and determine what educational needs our people need, what economic development needs our people have, as well as health needs," Batton said.
Since then, tribes nationwide, including the Choctaw Nation, have made enormous strides in running their judicial systems.
"That's the ability to govern ourselves, but also it gives us the ability to if we have somebody that's going through bad times and they go through our court system, we have 171 different programs to help them," Batton said.
The Choctaw Nation began providing healthcare to its members in 1999, and it had the first-ever tribal hospital in the history of the United States.
"I think we had 100,000 outpatient visits just last year and 1.1 million outpatient visits," Batton said. "When I started in the tribe in 1987, we had 110 employees. Today we have 13,500 employees."
The act also led to the Choctaw Nation paying for 10,000 kids to go to college or trade school each year.
"That allowed us to figure out what is our educational needs for our people, and how do we help attain those. A lot of our tribal members go to public school systems, so we work with 89 different public school systems," Batton said.
Batton believes Congress needs to do more work in the future to continue progress in Native American communities.
"I think more laws need to be passed. I think policies need to be clarified in regard to what does it mean to be for this law to be in place?" Batton said.
Time comes full circle for Batton, as he reflects on the past while feeling optimism for what's to come for his people.
"The tribes were in existence before the United States. We governed ourselves," Batton said. "This piece of legislation has brought that back to us so that we can govern ourselves again."
The Choctaw Nation's history dates back more than 13,000 years. The Choctaw people established their constitution in 1983, which was a direct outcome of the legislation.