Tim Mickleburgh
Words from Eleanor Roosevelt still guide Ada Deer: Change takes time, violence is not the answer, education is the way.
Six decades have passed, but Ada Deer vividly recalls the words Eleanor Roosevelt said to her that day at the Roosevelt estate north of New York City.
Deer had been bunking in the Bronx as part of the Encampment for Citizenship, a leadership development group for young people of diverse ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. She and her peers were bused to the Springwood estate to hear the former first lady talk about her human rights work.
“It was 1956, and I was 21,” recalls Deer. “After Mrs. Roosevelt addressed us, she asked if anyone had any questions. Well, we were all a little awestruck and intimidated.”
Deer mustered the courage to ask Roosevelt what could be done about the South African apartheid regime: “They’re killing their people; they’re oppressing their people.... Should we throw them out [of the United Nations] or what?’”
Roosevelt counseled perseverance. “She looked at me with this kind, gentle, patient, understanding, respectful persona, and she said, ‘You have to understand, change takes time. Violence is not the answer, education is the way.’”
Deer went on to become a legendary social worker, educator, political activist, tribal leader and head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Still, the Encampment for Citizenship remains on her mind these days. When a group of friends approached her about throwing an 80th birthday bash in her honor, she said sure, but only if the event could serve as a benefit for the Encampment, a group Deer now chairs.
The Oct. 3 birthday party/benefit will be held at the Goodman Center.
Roosevelt’s advice continues to resonate with Deer.
“I thought then and I still think now, how profound, and here I’m 80 years old and I’m still trying to make the world be all about my conversation with Eleanor Roosevelt. In many ways, we’ve come a long way since then; in many ways we haven’t...but the hard fact remains that what Mrs. Roosevelt said then is still true today.”
Deer was born in Keshena on the Menominee Reservation to a white mother, a public health nurse who’d been assigned to the reservation, and a Menominee Indian father. She grew up dirt poor with four siblings and her parents in a one-room cabin with no running water or electricity.
Deer’s mother embraced her adopted culture. “Her superiors probably hoped that some of her ‘white ways’ would rub off on the Indians, but it was the other way around,” Deer says. “She respected their ways...hunting, fishing, appreciation for nature and the outdoors, living off the land, the Menominee culture and traditions.”
It was Deer’s mother who set her on the path of activism. “My mother was the biggest influence in my life,” Deer says. “Even as a child, she’d say, ‘Ada, you need to make a difference for your people.’ Of course, I didn’t know what she meant — I thought I was already making a difference just by helping out around the cabin!”
Although Deer had a mostly happy childhood on the reservation, she says “I knew early in life...I did not want to grow up poor, and I knew that education was the way out.”
Deer briefly attended Milwaukee public schools, where she felt the sting of prejudice. “I was different; I was an outsider,” she says. “But that increased my determination to succeed, and I buried myself in my schoolwork.”
In 1957, Deer became the first member of the Menominee Nation to graduate from UW-Madison, earning a bachelor’s in social work. Four years later, she became the first American Indian to earn a master’s in social work from Columbia University.
Her career included stints at the Waite Neighborhood House in Milwaukee, the University of Minnesota and in the Minneapolis public school system. She was also director of the Indian Upward Bound program at UW-Stevens Point. She later became a distinguished lecturer at UW-Madison’s School of Social Work and directed its American Indian Studies program.
In 1971, Deer was attending the UW Law School. But she took a leave of absence in order to lead a fight for the Menominee Nation.
The federal government had stripped the Nation of federal recognition, closed its membership rolls, abolished the tribal government, and terminated education, health and other benefits.
Deer helped organize DRUMS (Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Shareholders), a grassroots movement of tribal members that restored tribal sovereignty. On Dec. 22, 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Menominee Restoration Act into law, a historic, precedent-setting reversal of federal Indian policy.
The victory earned her another first — she became the first woman to chair the Menominee Nation in Wisconsin.
Deer began looking for other ways to make a difference. She ran unsuccessfully for Wisconsin Secretary of State in 1978 and 1982.
In 1992 she became the first American Indian woman to win a partisan federal primary when she ran for Congress as a Democrat, using the slogan “Nobody Runs Like a Deer.” She lost the election to Republican Scott Klug. In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed her to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs, where she helped set policy for more than 550 federally recognized tribes.
Deer later returned to education as director of the American Indian Studies Program at UW-Madison. She sees both progress and festering problems for Native Americans.
“Our sovereignty is assured; we’ve come a long ways,” she says. “But in many ways a lot hasn’t changed. Poverty, poor health, alcoholism...whatever is the worst that can happen, that’s what happens to Indians.”
“Indians just want to be Indians,” adds Deer, noting that the “bad old days” of trying to assimilate Native Americans into white society will never be repeated.
And while income from casinos has made some tribes rich, not all tribes have, or want to have, casinos, and those that don’t continue to languish in poverty. “Yes, casinos have been great economic drivers, including creating a lot of white jobs, but will they be good for the Indian culture in the long run? To me that’s still an open question.”
In recent months, Ada’s own tribe, the Menominee, has made headlines by exploring the possibility of using its sovereign status to legalize marijuana and grow cannabis as a cash crop, either for medical or recreational use. That move comes in the wake of Gov. Scott Walker’s rejection of the tribe’s bid to open an off-reservation casino near Kenosha.
Deer is as ambivalent about pot as she is about casinos. “I’m not sure it’s the ultimate answer to bettering the tribe’s way of life,” Deer says. “That’s for the tribal legislators to decide. My vote is yes for medical use, no for recreation.”
For her part, she continues to champion causes that have been near and dear to her, including women’s rights and prisoners’ rights. The Encampment for Citizenship has a special place in her heart.
Deer sees it as a way to immerse students in participatory democracy.
“Ideally the hands-on experience that youth members receive about understanding the mechanics of democracy and using critical thinking skills to solve real-world problems will last a lifetime,” she says.
For Deer, it certainly has.
