Out of the Shadows : Native American International Activism, 1975-1981

A revelatory history of the Native American activists who reshaped international politics—building international alliances, redefining sovereignty, and laying the foundation for today’s global Indigenous rights movementThis book uncovers the pivotal yet long-overlooked story of how Native American activists reshaped international conversations on sovereignty, human rights, and Indigenous self-determination during the transformative decade of the 1970s. Drawing on extensive archival research and new oral histories, Jennifer R. O’Neal reveals how Native leaders built powerful alliances across borders, international organizations, and Indigenous nations to confront centuries of erasure and reclaim their place on the world stage. Set against the backdrop of the Red Power movement, evolving federal Indian policy, and the rise of Cold War human rights politics, this groundbreaking study traces the work of key organizations—including the International Indian Treaty Council, the National Congress of American Indians, the National Indian Brotherhood, and the World Council of Indigenous Peoples—as they navigated shifting political landscapes to influence both domestic and global policy. Through a lens of Indigenous relationality and resurgence, O’Neal demonstrates how activists• reframed sovereignty as a living practice rooted in land, culture, and community, and• resisted settler-colonial political constraints while forging new pathways toward justice. Illuminating a defining era of Indigenous political innovation, O’Neal brings this history out of the shadows—honoring the activists who envisioned a different future and built the foundations of today’s global Indigenous rights movement.