1948Uranium is first mined on the Navajo
(Dineh) reservation.
The Kerr-McGee Company begins mining the
vast uranium resources on the Navajo (Dineh)
reservation. The firm takes advantage of the res-
ervation’s lack of health regulations and the large
available labor force. Many returning Navajo vet-
erans sign on to work in the mines, where they
will routinely handle radioactive ore and suffer
exposure to more than 100 times the legal limit
of radon gas. A large number will subsequently
die of cancer.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs initiates an
education grant program.
Beginning in 1930, Congress established a loan
fund for Indians students pursuing college degrees.
By 1944, however, so many Indian graduates were
unable to repay their loans that Congress stopped
authorizing money for the fund.
Taking a new approach, the Bureau of Indian
Affairs creates the Higher Education Grant Program
to offer nonrepayable grants for tuition and other
student costs. Although initially modest in scope,
by the 1990s the program will grow to become the
primary source for federal funding for Indian col-
lege students.
Arizona enfranchises its Indian population.
In Harrison v. Laveen, the state supreme court of
Arizona upholds the right of Indian residents to
vote in local and state elections. The decision re-
verses a 20-year-old ruling in which the court found
that Indians should not be allowed to vote because
they are under the guardianship of the federal gov-
ernment. The court equated this status with that of
“people with disabilities.”
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) encourages
Navajo (Dineh) to move to cities.
Concerned that the Navajo (Dineh) reservation
economy cannot support its growing population,
the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) develops a pro-
gram to encourage Navajo to move to urban areas.
Participants are sent to relocation offices in Los
Angeles, Denver, and Salt Lake City, where BIA
employees try to place them in temporary or per-
manent jobs. The program’s success will later inspire
the BIA to extend the Relocation policy to reserva-
tion populations across the United States (see entry
for 1952).May 6The Straight Arrow radio series is first
broadcast.
Sponsored by the National Biscuit Company
(Nabisco), Straight Arrow, an action radio series, is
aired on the Don Lee Network. Straight Arrow re-
counts the adventures of a Comanche warrior who
disguises himself as a white cattle rancher named
Steve Adams. Before its cancellation in 1951, the
popular series will spawn a comic book and syndi-
cated newspaper strip. It will also inspire Nabisco to
include “Injun-Uity Cards” in boxes of its Shred-
ded Wheat cereal. These cheaply printed collectable
cards will feature information for children on In-
dian customs and lore.May 27Korczak Ziolkowski begins work on his
monument to Crazy Horse.
Non-Indian sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski starts
to carve a figure of the legendary Lakota Sioux
warrior Crazy Horse (see entry for MAY 6, 1877)
into Thunderhead Mountain in the Black Hills, a
complex of mountains sacred to the Lakota Sioux.
Because Crazy Horse was never photographed, the
sculptor works from his imagination to design the
figure, which sits astride a stallion with his arm
outstretched and finger pointing to his burial site.
The flamboyant Ziolkowski plans for the sculpture
to be the largest ever created on earth. If stacked,
the four heads of the nearby Mount Rushmore
would measure only as high as Crazy Horse’s mas-
sive face.