page_title: Choctaw
section_title: 1960s to present
hierarchical_section_title: Choctaw / 1960s to present
caption_attribution_description: English: Norma Howard (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma), award-winning watercolor painter with Choctaw stickball sticks made by her son.
context_page_description: The Choctaw are a Native American people originally occupying what is now the Southeastern United States. Their Choctaw language belongs to the Muskogean language family group. In the present day, they are organized as the federally recognized Choctaw Nation, but also smaller bands located in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.
  Hopewell and Mississippian cultures, who lived throughout the east of the Mississippi River valley and its tributaries. About 1,700 years ago, the Hopewell people built Nanih Waiya, a great earthwork mound located in what is central present-day Mississippi. It is still considered sacred by the Choctaw. The early Spanish explorers of the mid-16th century in the Southeast encountered Mississippian-culture villages and chiefs. The anthropologist John R. Swanton suggested that the Choctaw derived their name from an early leader. Henry Halbert, a historian, suggests that their name is derived from the Choctaw phrase Hacha hatak.
  The Choctaw coalesced as a people in the 17th century and developed three distinct political and geographical divisions: eastern, western and southern.
context_section_description: In the social changes around the civil rights era, between 1965 and 1982 many Choctaw Native Americans renewed their commitments to the value of their ancient heritage. Working to celebrate their own strengths and exercise appropriate rights; they dramatically reversed the trend toward abandonment of Indian culture and tradition. During the 1960s, Community Action programs connected with Native Americans were based on citizen participation. In the 1970s, the Choctaw repudiated the extremes of Indian activism. The Oklahoma Choctaw sought a local grassroots solution to reclaim their cultural identity and sovereignty as a nation. The Mississippi Choctaw would lay the foundations of business ventures.
  Federal policy under President Richard M. Nixon encouraged giving tribes more authority for self-determination, within a policy of federal recognition. Realizing the damage that had been done by termination of tribal status, he ended the federal emphasis of the 1950s on termination of certain tribes' federally recognized status and relationships with the federal government:
  Forced termination is wrong, in my judgment, for a number of reasons. First, the premises on which it rests are wrong ... The second reason for rejecting forced termination is that the practical results have been clearly harmful in the few instances in which termination actually has been tried ... The third argument I would make against forced termination concerns the effect it has had upon the overwhelming majority of tribes which still enjoy a special relationship with the Federal government ... The recommendations of this administration represent an historic step forward in Indian policy. We are proposing to break sharply with past approaches to Indian problems.
  — President Richard Nixon, Special Message on Indian Affairs, July 8, 1970.
  Soon after this, Congress passed the landmark Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975; this completed a 15-year period of federal policy reform with regard to American Indian tribes. The legislation authorized processes by which tribes could negotiate contracts with the BIA to manage directly more of their education and social service programs. In addition, it provided direct grants to help tribes develop plans for assuming such responsibility. It also provided for Indian parents' participation on local school boards.
  Beginning in 1979 the Mississippi Choctaw tribal council worked on a variety of economic development initiatives, first geared toward attracting industry to the reservation. They had many people available to work, natural resources, and no state or federal taxes. Industries have included automotive parts, greeting cards, direct mail and printing, and plastic-molding. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is one of the state's largest employers, running 19 businesses and employing 7,800 people.
  Starting with New Hampshire in 1963, numerous state governments began to operate lotteries and other gambling in order to raise money for government services, often promoting the programs by promising to earmark revenues to fund education, for instance. In 1987 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that federally recognized tribes could operate gaming facilities on reservations, as this was sovereign territory, and be  free from state regulation. As tribes began to develop gaming, starting with bingo, in 1988 the U.S. Congress enacted the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). It set the broad terms for Native American tribes to operate casinos, requiring that they do so only in states that had already authorized private gaming. Since then development of casino gaming has been one of the chief sources for many tribes of new revenues.
  The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma developed gaming operations and a related resort: the Choctaw Casino Resort and Choctaw Casino Bingo are their popular gaming destinations in Durant. Located near the Oklahoma-Texas border, these sites attract residents of Southern Oklahoma and North Texas. The largest regional population base from which they draw is the Dallas-Fo
caption: Norma Howard (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma), award-winning watercolor painter, with Choctaw stickball sticks made by her son.
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