Indigenous leaders celebrate 76 years of Native American voting rights in Arizona

Gila River Indian Community Governor Stephen Roe Lewis wants Arizona’s Native Americans to remember and honor those who fought for their right to vote this year by exercising that right.

“We are not celebrating the right to vote,” Lewis said. “We are recognizing and commemorating these important dates in the history of our tribes and our tribal members.”

Lewis said it’s more than just a celebration as the community comes together to commemorate the challenge tribes in Arizona had to overcome to be able to vote on their homelands.

Any reason for celebration would be hollow, said Lewis, because it is absolutely unbelievable that the indigenous people had to fight so hard and sacrifice so much to be recognized as citizens of a country whose land has always been inhabited by indigenous people.

Indigenous peoples were not recognized as citizens of the United States until 1924, and it took decades for many of them to receive the rights that come with citizenship, including the right to vote. In Arizona, Native Americans were not granted the right to vote until 1948.

“We do not celebrate these groundbreaking events, but we pause, we really pause, to honor those who fought for these rights and to reflect on their ongoing impact on our present and our future,” Lewis said.

In commemoration of the 76th anniversary of the introduction of Native American voting rights in Arizona and the 100th anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona and Arizona Native Vote hosted an event and panel discussion on July 12 at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass in Chandler.

“Here in the state of Arizona, Native Americans have fought a very long and hard political battle for the right to vote,” said Maria Dadgar, executive director of the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona.

“We must remember that our voice is our power,” Dadgar added. “And we can use that power to ensure that the principles of democracy are upheld.”

The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona is one of the oldest and largest intertribal organizations in the country. It is a consortium of 21 tribal nations in Arizona.

“Our mission is to provide our member tribes with a unified voice and the ability to act together on issues that affect Arizona’s tribal nations collectively or individually,” Dadgar said, and one of those concerns is to encourage tribal nations to get their communities out to vote and protect Native American voting rights.

Arizona has one of the largest indigenous voter populations in the countrywith more than 305,000 people of voting age, according to the National Congress of American Indians. Indigenous people make up 6% of Arizona’s total population.

On July 15, 1948, Arizona’s Native Americans finally received the right to vote after the state Supreme Court overturned a ban that had originally been in place in 1924.

In Arizona, the fight for Native American voting rights began when citizens of the Gila River Indian Community Peter Porter and Rudolf Johnson filed suit in November 1924and advocates for Arizona’s indigenous population to have the right to vote in state elections.

This attempt failed when the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that indigenous members of Arizona’s tribal nations were residents of the state but were not allowed to vote because they were under federal guardianship.

For the next 24 years, Native Americans were denied the right to vote until Fort McDowell Yavapai tribal members Frank Harrison and Harry Austin attempted to cast their vote in 1948.

Their goal was to vote for politicians in Arizona who would support their efforts to provide care for seniors and families, but the Maricopa County Recorder turned them away.

They soon filed a lawsuit in the hope of overturning the Arizona Supreme Court’s 1924 decision. On July 15, 1948, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled in favor of Harrison and Austin.

“In a democracy, the right to vote is the most fundamental civil right because its exercise is the primary means by which other rights can be protected,” wrote Arizona Supreme Court Justice Levi Udall in his opinion upholding the state’s indigenous peoples’ right to vote.

“To deny someone the right to vote when they are legally entitled to do so is to violate the principles of liberty and equality,” he said.

Lewis said the stories of Porter, Johnson, Harrison and Austin must not be forgotten and must be used to educate people about the path these four individuals took to ensure that Arizona’s indigenous people can exercise their right to vote today.

“This is just recent history,” Lewis said, adding that there are stories from elders within the community who say attitudes toward indigenous people have not changed with “the stroke of a pen.”

Lewis said the history of Indigenous people in Arizona’s fight for voting rights is a perfect example of how even after laws impacting Indigenous communities are passed, people must continue to fight for full inclusion in a way that makes sense for Indigenous people and their tribal communities.

“Unfortunately, this fight continues to this day,” Lewis said, noting that Arizona is considered the epicenter of voter suppression laws.

Many of the proposed laws that critics say are aimed at suppressing the Arizona voter base would have a significant impact on Native voters, Lewis said, because many of the laws target ID requirements.

Lewis said the fight for Native American voting rights is not only being fought at the state level, because The US House of Representatives passed a bill Voters who register to vote are required to provide proof of citizenship in order to participate in federal elections.

“The Gila River Indian Community will continue to oppose efforts at the state and federal level that restrict the voting rights and choices of our tribal members,” he said. “The community will continue to fight to make our voice heard through our election.”

The story of Matthew Juan

Lewis told the story of Matthew Juan, a member of the Gila River Indian Community who served in the U.S. Army during World War I.

Juan fought in the first American offensive against German-occupied territory in Cantigny, France on May 28, 1918. Juan was killed during the conflict and is probably the first Native American and Arizonan to die in World War I.

However, like all other Native Americans who served in the military during World War I, Juan was not recognized as a U.S. citizen at the time of his death. Juan grew up in Sacaton in the Gila River Indian Community.

“Juan gave his life for our state, for our country, even before he was recognized as a citizen,” Lewis said.

Juan was buried in France until 1921, when his body was exhumed at his mother’s request so that her son could be buried at home in Arizona. Juan is buried in the CH Cook Memorial Church Cemetery in Sacaton.

Thousands of indigenous people served in World War I, but when they returned home they were not considered citizens of the country they had fought for.

It was not until the passage of the Citizenship Act in 1919 that all indigenous veterans of World War I were granted US citizenship.

It would take another five years before President Calvin Coolidge Indian Citizenship Act, 1924which granted U.S. citizenship to “all noncitizen Indians born within the territorial boundaries of the United States.”

Before the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, there were two ways for Native Americans to become citizens: through draft and through land grant.

To put the timing into perspective, the Indian Citizenship Act was enacted in 1924. However, this happened 136 years after the ratification of the United States Constitution, which granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States.

It would take over a century for the United States to recognize indigenous peoples as citizens of their homeland.

It would take even longer for the states to recognize the rights associated with indigenous peoples’ citizenship, including the right to vote.

The importance of voting

The event featured a panel discussion on “Native Voting Rights and the Indian Citizenship Act” with Arizona tribal leaders: Robert Miguel, Chairman of the Ak-Chin Indian Community, Carla Johnson, Vice Chair of the Tohono O’odham Nation, Martin Harvier, President of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, and GRIC Governor Lewis.

Harvier said he never thought about voting as a child and doesn’t remember his father ever voting. That attitude toward voting only changed when he ran for vice president of his tribe.

“It all starts at home,” Harvier said, and it is up to parents, grandparents or guardians to teach their children the importance of voting and the power of their voice.

Harvier said it would be difficult for indigenous communities to throw all their support behind one candidate because, as sovereign nations, they must be able to maintain a governing relationship with whoever wins the election.

“It’s difficult,” he said, adding that the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community has never been a tribe that would push its members toward a particular candidate.

“We look for how supportive they are of Native issues, no matter where they’re running for office,” Hariver said. And they also want to see if the candidates have had any contact with or support for tribes in the area.

“Whatever we do as communities, we need to do our best to educate our members about those running for office and how they support our issues when we bring them to the table,” he said. “Tribal communities have been on the agenda for years, and we need to come to the table.”