There was a time in the United States when, unbelievably, Native Americans (and other minorities) did not legally have the “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Those words are from the United States Declaration of Independence—words white Americans apparently believed did not apply to those Americans whose skin was not white.

That all changed when Chief Standing Bear of the Ponca Tribe eloquently and powerfully asserted the humanity of Native Americans in an 1879 lawsuit.… Read more