Ben Nighthorse Campbell Quotes
Indians were here first - it's about time. We're way behind the African Americans and Hispanic Americans in getting politically involved, but we're beginning to take a page out of their notebook.
Gross, Jane. "THE 1992 ELECTIONS: THE STATES; A Maverick, Now a Senator, Plans to Keep True to His Roots." The New York Times, 5 Nov. 1992, p. B14.
In 1964 Canada stood at a crossroads. a serious political movement dedicated to separation had formed in Quebec. . A terrorist group, the Front de Liberation du Quebec (FLQ.) was at work. The response of Prime Minister Lester Pearson was to create a bipartisan bicultural Royal Commission on Bilingualism.
Having endured centuries of near slavery and discrimination, 70,000 Irish people signed this petition urging American-Irish immigrants to understand the similar plight of African-Americans and to join together with abolitionists. Irish immigrants were nevertheless reluctant to join the abolition movement because the movement was often tied to anti-Catholicism and many feared that the emancipation of Blacks would increase competition for the low-paying jobs immigrants held.
What was absurd about this statement is that tens of thousands of men were drafted during the Vietnam war unless they had connections or were not physically fit. The implication that minority youth who did volunteer were not “patriotic” like he was became an insult to many Americans. The Congressman was a “Chicken Hawk”—a politician very aggressive about sending our military into combat, yet who never served in the military themselves. Later, DeLay was convicted and sentenced to jail for money laundering and illegally spending and raising campaign funds. He was also reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee for unethical methods of fund raising for other earlier actions.
He was the first FHA administrator to make statements saying that non-discriminatory housing services should be available to the American people. At the time the Southern states had laws allowing and protecting legal segregation especially in housing. The Southern field staff interpreted his instruction to be sure that both blacks and whites had access to FHA services, but they used the “separate but equal” doctrine: Provide services to both races but always in segregated housing projects. This was typical of the kinds of problems that motivated the Civil Rights Acts offered by President Kennedy in 1963 and passed by President Johnson in 1964. See {637272} for a similar Mason statement.
Ben Nighthorse Campbell is an American Cheyenne politician who served as a U.S. Representative from 1987 to 1993, and a U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1993 to 2005. He serves as one of forty-four members of the Council of Chiefs of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Tribe. During his time in office, he was the only Native American serving in the U.S. Congress. As of 2021, he is the last Native American elected to the U.S. Senate.
