Indian Citizenship Act Signed into Law
President Calvin Coolidge on this day signed into law the Indian Citizenship Act, granting full American citizenship to Native-Americans.
Prior to the law, there was some legal ambiguity about whether Native-Americans were citizens by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment. A bill granting citizenship was first introduced on August 9, 1919, prompted in part to recognize the participation of thousands of Native-Americans in World War I.
The Indian Civil Rights Act, designed to ensure the civil liberties of individual Native-Americans, was passed by Congress on April 11, 1968.
Learn more at the Native American Rights Fund: http://www.narf.org/
Read: George Castile, To Show Heart: Native American Self-Determination and Federal Indian Policy, 1960–1975 (1998)
Read the text of the 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act here
Read: John Wunder, The Indian Bill of Rights, 1968 (1996)