If you're not yet familiar with the name Wilma Mankiller, you probably will be soon: The trailblazing former Cherokee Nation chief is coming to a U.S. quarter near you.
When Mankiller – whose family surname refers to an ancestral tribal military rank – died in 2010 at the age of 64, she was remembered as a feminist pioneer and fierce advocate for Native Americans. Now, she's again being honored – this time, with her image emblazoned>An historic first
When Mankiller was 10 years old, her family left the Cherokee Nation's capital city of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, so her father could take a warehouse job in San Francisco. She later called the move "my own little Trail of Tears," because it took her away from her family's tribe and her grandfather's farm, where she'd spent her childhood.
Living in the Bay Area set her down a path of social activism. In 1969, when she was in her mid-20s, Mankiller witnessed a group of Native Americans occupying Alcatraz Island, claiming the federal land to protest the treatment of Native Americans by the American government.
In her 1993 autobiography, "Mankiller: A Chief and Her People," Mankiller wrote: "When Alcatraz occurred, I became aware of what needed to be done to let the rest of the world know that Indians had rights, too. Alcatraz articulated my own feelings about being an Indian."
