In this county’s founding documents, people sure had an affinity for the word "we," underscoring the need to build solidarity for Native inclusion because Native communities were not a part of this "we." For example, the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence begins:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

While I am an unabashed believer in aspiration, it’s clear that this we was not meant to include me and Native peoples like me.

As evidence, one just has to jump just toward the end to see how the we of this emerging nation really felt about the original inhabitants of this continent, my ancestors, when the nation’s founders described them as “the Inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction, of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

I often write about the work of First Nations Development Institute, where I serve as president and CEO. For 45 years now, we have been focused on and continue to fight for economic justice with, by, and for Native peoples. This, “with, by, and for” Indian Country is terribly important because that has hardly ever been the practice.

Here at First Nations, we stand by the aspiration that control of one’s economic destiny applies to all people equally, and that sharp vigilance and timely intervention can upend centuries of American Native peoples’ disenfranchisement that has kept them from controlling their own economies, demonstrating the importance of building solidarity for Native inclusion.

Voices of My Ancestors

At First Nations, we frequently share that the appropriated use of American Indian assets has created, in the United States, one of the world’s wealthiest economies, but at the expense of American Indian economic and human rights. In fact, Native Americans have routinely been deprived of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that’s promised non-Native Americans. So, for me, the most important part of that sentence, so often quoted from the US Declaration of Independence, are not the words life, liberty, or happiness, but rather and—as in: Can we maintain our Native values and pursue our lives as we wish?

Read the full article about building solidarity for Native inclusion by Michael E. Roberts at Nonprofit Quarterly.