RESILIENCE REBROADCAST (RRB) #2 – ON HAVING A PURPOSE IN LIFE
When I set out to blog about mental resilience, I deliberately chose to feature lesser-known heroes, from all eras, and from all walks of life. Here is a synopsis of the life of Wilma P. Mankiller, who will be featured on the obverse side the U.S. quarter-dollar coin in 2022.
A Tough Life
Wilma Pearl Mankiller was born 18 November 1945 in Oklahoma. She traced her ancestry to Cherokee, Irish, and Dutch ancestors. One of 13 children, she grew up in a house without electricity or running water on Mankiller Flats, located near Rocky Mountain, Oklahoma. The family hunted, fished, and grew vegetables to survive. Wilma grew up hearing stories of the Trail of Tears, which was the forced migration of the Cherokee Nation away from their traditional lands. That knowledge that 4000 of the Cherokee Nation died along that path was a pivotal event in her life.
Wilma and her family moved to San Francisco, California, when she was 11 years old. Unfortunately, the family still struggled greatly in their new home due to dwindling finances and discrimination. Wilma chose to ignore the daily indignities of racial discrimination and to fight the larger challenge of structural inequity in American society.
Wilma attended Skyline College and San Francisco State University in California before enrolling at Flaming Rainbow University in Oklahoma, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences. She later undertook graduate courses at the University of Arkansas.
In 1979, Wilma came close to losing her life in a car accident, in which she was struck head on by her best friend. Her friend died, and though Wilma survived, she underwent numerous surgeries along her long path to recovery. She later had to struggle with kidney disease, lymphoma, and myasthenia gravis – a neuromuscular disease which can lead to paralysis. Once again, Mankiller overcame her health challenges.
A Tough Leader
Wilma Mankiller was elected Deputy Chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1983. In 1985 she became the first female Principal Chief. She sought to improve the nation’s health care, education system and government during her tenure. Twice re-elected, she resigned due to ill health in 1995 but remained active in women’s and Native American activism until the end of her life. Wilma received numerous honors for her leadership and activism, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998.
Legacy
Wilma Mankiller shared her experiences as a pioneer in tribal government in her 1993 autobiography, Mankiller: A Chief and Her People. She also wrote and compiled Every Day Is a Good Day: Reflections by Contemporary Indigenous Women (2004), featuring a forward by feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem. Wilma died of pancreatic cancer 6 April 2010 at the age of 64. Then President Barack Obama issued this statement after learning of her death,
As the Cherokee Nation’s first female chief, she transformed the nation-to-nation relationship between the Cherokee Nation and the federal government and served as an inspiration to women in Indian Country and across America. Her legacy will continue to encourage and motivate all who carry on her work.
Why
Wilma Mankiller experienced hunger, crowded housing, racial and sexual discrimination by being a woman born into social hierarchy in the mid 20th Century. This would be sufficient challenge for most people. She had a difficult path to recovery from the 1979 car accident which killed her best friend. Wilma also suffered from ill health for last 15 years of her life while remaining active in the struggle for equal rights. Her life begs the question “What special resilient strengths allowed her to overcome such hardships and become an influential leader?”
According to Wilma,
The most fulfilled people are the ones that get up every day and stand for something larger than themselves. They are the people that care about others and they are the ones that will extend a helping hand to someone in need or will speak about an injustice when they see it.
Mentoring Her Successors
Wilma’s influence inspired other Indigenous women to set higher goals. According to Lynn Williams, Chairwoman of the Kaw Nation,
We as natives have been silent for far too long, we want our voices to be heard. We want people to know how things really are for us. I think having her face on that quarter is just going to help us and help our young people to realize anybody can do whatever you set your mind and your heart to do.
Edwina Butler-Wolfe, former governor of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe and current Education Director of the Sac and Fox Nation, said Mankiller played a crucial role in her decision to become an Indigenous woman leader.
I like the saying that Wilma used: She had said, ‘Women can help turn the world right-side-up. We bring a more collaborative approach to government. If we do not participate, the decision will be made without us.” And that’s so very true. And I took that to heart, because you got to be at the table.
The new quarter design, according to Butler-Wolfe, shows that “our Native American women can be somebody.”
Speaking to the Future
Wilma Mankiller is one of five women chosen by the United States Mint for the new American Women Quarters program. Wilma will be featured on the third coin of the American Women Quarters program, which will begin circulating in 2022. The design features an image of Mankiller, wrapped in a traditional shawl with the seven-pointed star of the Cherokee Nation to her left. Below her, “Cherokee Nation” appears in the Cherokee syllabary. The wind is at her back, gazing to the right, steadfastly into the future.
