How a Native American Won the Right to be Known as “a Man”

Chief Standing Bear was an early civil rights champion

Left: Illustration from The Indian Dispossessed by Seth K. Humphrey, 1906. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Center: Flag of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska. Xasartha, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Right: Statue of Chief Standing Bear located in the United States Capitol Building, National Statuary Hall Collection. Benjamin Victor, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It is a sad truth that American history is littered with stories of injustice. It took the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s to drive the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1879, long before that historic time, another civil rights victory took place…