Native Americans

President Obama yesterday hosted a Tribal Nations Conference with representatives of 386 tribal nations at the White House.

He acknowledged the terrible historical record of the US government toward native Americans over the past centuries, and pledged a change in attitude and policy as long as he was President.

He called for greater participation by native American tribes in decision making that affected them, and set a 90 day deadline for recommendations to be submitted in how to improve the lives of the first Americans.

The conference was an encouraging first step and it is hoped that Obama will take greater action than other Presidents who gave lip service to the issues confronting native Americans, but at the end did next to nothing to grope with their problems and challenges.

It has just been announced that President Obama will host a White House meeting on November 5, a year after his election, for native Americans.

Entitled the Tribal Nations Conference, a representative of all 564 federally recognized tribes will be invited to the gathering, which sounds likely to be the biggest conference in size and detail regarding native American issues, in the history of the country.

This is a major step forward, which hopefully will lead to work on matters important to native Americans, since the tendency has been to ignore our smallest minority, which remain by every statistic available, the poorest group in America. It is time for real action and return of dignity to native Americans, so it is expected Obama will go beyond the niceties of the conference and produce major results that will affect the long term future of native Americans.