The Power of the Native Vote Is Reshaping Alaska Politics…After decades of being shut out at the ballot box, the state’s tribal populations now wield significant influence as a voting bloc. After the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, the Alaska Territorial Legislature passed a bill in 1925 that required voters to speak and read English, thus excluding many Alaska Natives from voting. Even after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which eliminated literacy tests, Alaska Natives still faced significant barriers that diminished the power of their vote. “There’s a lot of generational trauma here, and colonization is violent. And so for a lot of our people, we did not have a lot of self-worth identifying as Native people. So when you ask them to vote, some of them are probably surprised that they should matter,” said Michelle Sparck, the director of strategic initiatives at Get Out the Native Vote and a Cup’ik from the Kashanumiat tribe of Chevak, Alaska.
The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian is celebrating horses in Native American culture and equestrian sport throughout history with “A Horse Nation” at the flagship museum on the National Mall. The exhibition explores the role horses have played in Native culture from the 1500s to the present. “What better way for us to come together to illuminate our shared history and distinct cultures than through our mutual admiration for horses,” museum director Kevin Gover (Pawnee) said in a statement. “This unique collaboration celebrates the indomitable spirit not just of the Horse Nation but of the whole nation.”