Community members alongside tribal leaders from the Gila River Indian Community, Ak-Chin Indian Community, Tohono O'odham Nation, and Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community gather to commemorate the 76th Anniversary of the Native Right to Vote in Arizona event on July 12, 2024. Photo by Shondiin Silversmith | Arizona Mirror
Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis wants Arizona’s Indigenous people to remember and honor those who fought for their right to vote as they exercise that right this year.
“We’re not celebrating the right to vote,” Lewis said. “We are acknowledging and commemorating these important dates in history for our tribes and our tribal members.”
Lewis said it’s more than a celebration when the community comes together to commemorate what tribes in Arizona had to overcome to vote on their homelands.
A celebration would ring hollow, Lewis said because it is so unconscionable that Indigenous people had to fight so hard and sacrifice so much to be acknowledged as citizens of a country on lands that Indigenous people have inhabited since time immemorial.
Indigenous people were not considered citizens of the United States until 1924, and it would take decades for many to gain access to the rights that are supposed to coincide with citizenship, including voting. Indigenous people in Arizona were not granted the right to vote until 1948.
“We don’t celebrate these landmark events, but we pause, we truly pause to honor those who fought for these rights and to reflect that continued impact on our present day and our future,” Lewis said.
To recognize the 76th anniversary of Native voting rights in Arizona and the 100th anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona and the Arizona Native Vote hosted an event and panel discussion at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass in Chandler on July 12.
“Here in the state of Arizona, American Indian people have fought a very long and hard political battle to win 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 country’s oldest and largest inter-tribal organizations. It is a consortium of 21 Tribal Nations in Arizona.
“Our mission is to provide our member Tribes with a united voice and the means for united action on matters that affect Tribal Nations in Arizona, collectively or individually,” Dadgar said, and one of those issues includes encouraging Tribal Nations to get their communities to vote and protect Native voting rights.
Arizona has one of the largest Native voting populations in the country, with more than 305,000 people of voting age, according to the National Congress of American Indians. Indigenous people make up 6% of Arizona’s overall population.
Indigenous people in Arizona finally gained the right to vote on July 15, 1948, after the Arizona Supreme Court struck down a ban initially outlined in 1924.
In Arizona, the fight for Native voting rights started when Gila River Indian Community citizens Peter Porter and Rudolf Johnson filed a suit in November 1924, advocating for Indigenous people in Arizona to have the right to vote in state elections.
That attempt failed when the Arizona Supreme Court determined that, although Indigenous people of Tribal Nations in Arizona were state residents, they could not vote because they were considered under federal guardianship.
For the next 24 years, Indigenous people were denied the right to vote until Fort McDowell Yavapai tribal members Frank Harrison and Harry Austin tried to cast their votes in 1948.
Their goal was to vote for Arizona leaders who would support their efforts to provide for senior citizens and families, but the Maricopa County Recorder turned them away.
They soon filed a lawsuit in hopes of overturning the Arizona Supreme Court’s 1924 decision, and on July 15, 1948, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled in favor of Harrison and Austin.
“In a democracy, suffrage is the most basic civil right since its exercise is the chief means whereby other rights may be safeguarded,” Arizona Supreme Court Justice Levi Udall wrote in the opinion that established Indigenous people’s right to vote in the state.
“To deny the right to vote, where one is legally entitled to do so, is to do violence to the principles of freedom and equality,” he said.
Lewis said the story of Porter, Johnson, Harrison, and Austin should not be forgotten and should be used to educate people on the path these four individuals provided so that Indigenous people in Arizona can exercise their right to vote today.
“This is just recent history,” Lewis said, adding that there are stories from elders within the community of how attitudes toward Indigenous people did not change with the “stroke of that pen.”
Lewis said that the story of how Indigenous people fought for the right to vote in Arizona is a perfect illustration of how, even after laws are passed that impact Indigenous communities, their people still have to fight for full inclusion in the ways that make sense to Indigenous people and their tribal communities.
“Unfortunately, that fight still goes on today,” Lewis said, noting that Arizona is considered ground zero for voting suppression laws.
Many of the proposed laws that critics say are aimed at suppressing voters in Arizona would have a significant impact on Native voters, Lewis said, because many of the laws are aimed at identification requirements.
Lewis said the fight for Native voting rights is not only at the state level because the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill requiring individuals registering to vote to provide proof of citizenship 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 opportunities for our tribal members,” he said. “The community will continue to fight for our voice to be heard through our vote.”
The story of Matthew Juan
Lewis shared the story of Gila River Indian Community member Matthew Juan, who served in the United States 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 in action during the conflict, and he is believed to be the first Native American and Arizonan to die in World War I.
However, like all other Indigenous people serving in the military during World War I, Juan was not recognized as a United States citizen at the time of his death. Juan grew up in Sacaton, on 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 the request of his mother so that her son could be buried at home in Arizona. Juan is buried at the C.H. Cook Memorial Church yard in Sacaton.
Thousands of Indigenous people served in World War I, but when they returned home, they were not considered citizens in the country they fought for.
Not until the United States passed the Citizenship Act of 1919 were all Indigenous World War I veterans granted citizenship.
It would be five more years before President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, which gave citizenship to “all non-citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States.”
Before the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, there were two main ways an Indigenous person could become a citizen: enlistment and land allotment.
To put the timeline in perspective, the Indian Citizenship Act was signed into law in 1924. However, it came 136 years after the ratification of the United States Constitution, which granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the U.S.
It would take the United States over a century to acknowledge Indigenous people as citizens of their homelands.
It would take even longer before states honored the rights that came with citizenship among Indigenous peoples, including the right to vote.
The importance of voting
As part of the event, a panel discussion on Native voting and the Indian Citizenship Act was held, featuring Arizona tribal leaders: Ak-Chin Indian Community Chairman Robert Miguel, Tohono O’odham Nation Vice Chairwoman Carla Johnson, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community President Martin Harvier, and GRIC Gov. Lewis.
Harvier said that growing up, he did not think about voting and did not recall his dad ever voting. That mindset on voting did not change until he was running for vice president of his tribe.
“Everything starts in your home,” Harvier said, and it is up to parents, grandparents, or guardians to teach their children how important it is to vote and how powerful their vote is.
Harvier said it is hard for Indigenous communities to put all their support behind one candidate because, as sovereign nations, they need to be able to maintain a government-to-government relationship with whoever wins that office.
“It’s difficult,” he said, adding that the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community has never been a tribe to push its members toward a specific candidate.
“We do look at how supportive they have been on Native issues wherever they’re running for office,” Hariver said, and they like to see if the candidates have reached out or supported tribes in the area at any time.
“Whatever we do as communities, we’ve got to do the best that we can to educate our members on those that are running for office and how they support our issues when we bring them to the table,” he said. “For years, tribal communities have been on the menus and we need to be at the table.”
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