Our Golden Moment

AIHEC at 50 by James Jetty (Spirit Lake Dakota), created in collaboration with Eighth Generation Shortly after D-Q University opened its doors in 1971, the institution's board chair, David Risling (Hoopa), sent runners to visit Navajo Community College, Sinte Gleska College, and Oglala Sioux Community College to make connections and gather information on accreditation and funding. Native communities were marred by economic and political regression with the highest unemployment rates in the country, an infant mortality rate five times the national average, and life expectancy 25 years lower than other Americans. [...]as other Americans kicked back in their recliners watching Leave It to Beaver on their new television sets, Indian Country was in crisis mode. [...]the 1960s, there was just one intertribal organization that worked on behalf of all Native nations.