Recognition of Native American Indian Day is growing in popularity throughout the country.
Its history dates back to the early 1900s. Many claim the holiday’s roots go back to 1902 and the League of Woodcraft Indians, an American youth Program for non-Indians that was the forerunner of the popular Boy Scouts of America organization, founded in 1910.
It was 1913 when a group of Black Foot Indians from Montana travelled 4,000 miles on horseback asking for the nation’s governors to establish a holiday honoring American Indians.
In December of 1914 the proposal was adopted by 24 states in the country.
A year later at a meeting of the American Indian Association in Lawrence, Kansas it was sanctioned by that organization.
Several states have individually made Native American Day an official state holiday.
Some states celebrate it on or around the second Monday of October, rather than recognizing Columbus Day.
In 1989 the South Dakota legislature unanimously passed legislation proposed by then Governor George S. Mickelson to proclaim 1990 as the “Year of Reconciliation” between Native Americans and whites to change Columbus Day to Native American Day and to make Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday into a state holiday. Since 1990 the second Monday iin October has been celebrated as Native American Day in South Dakota.
In 1994 the state General Assembly established the fourth Monday in September of each year is to be especially observed in Tennessee as “American Indian Day”
In 1968 Ronald Reagan signed a resolution calling for a holiday called American Indian Day to be held the Fourth Friday in September. In 1998, the California Assembly passed AB 1953, which made Native American Day an official state holiday.
There are those who celebrate Thanksgiving as Native American Day. The fourth Thursday of November, observed as a legal holiday in the United States to commemorate the feast held at Plymouth in 1621 by the pilgrim colonists and members of the Wampanoag people, is traditionally marked by the giving of thanks to God for harvest and health.
