Wilma Mankiller

Wilma Pearl Mankiller was a social worker, community developer, activist, and the first woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. She lived on her family allotment in Adair County until the age of 11, when her family relocated to San Francisco, California, as part of a federal program to urbanize indigenous Americans. Mankiller took great inspiration from social movements of the 1960s. She was involved in the Occupation of Alcatraz and played an important role in the land and compensation struggles of the Pit River Tribe of California. In the early 1970s, she served for five years as a social worker with the Urban Indian Resource Center. In 1976, Mankiller returned to Oklahoma where she worked as an economic stimulus coordinator for the Cherokee Nation.

In the 1980s, Mankiller served in the Community Development Department of the Cherokee Nation leading ambitious projects in Bell, Oklahoma. For her Project in Kenwood, she was awarded with the Department of Housing and Urban Development Certificate of National Merit. In 1983, Ross Swimmer, then running as the incumbent principal chief, appointed Mankiller as his deputy. When Swimmer later vacated this position, Mankiller was consequently promoted to the office of principal chief. During her administration, the Cherokee Nation built new health clinics, created adult education and vocational programs, a mobile eye-care clinic, and established ambulance services.

After her retirement, she turned her attention more toward her activism endeavors against the misappropriation of native heritage.