Vine Victor Deloria, Jr.

Vine Victor Deloria, Jr. was a theologian, historian, and activist for Native American rights, widely known for his book Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (1969), which drew national attention to Native American issues concurrent with the Alcatraz-Red Power Movement. 

Beginning in 1977, he was a founding trustee of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, whose library is named in his honor. Considered the leading Native American intellectual of the twentieth century, Deloria was a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Born in South Dakota, near the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, he served in the Marines from 1954 to 1956. 

Deloria was educated at Iowa State University (B.S. in general science, 1958), Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (then Augustana Theological Seminary; M.Th. in sacred theology, 1963), and the University of Colorado Law School (J.D., 1970). In 1970, Deloria began his academic career at Western Washington State College (now University). He was Professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona (1978–1990), where he established the first master’s degree program in American Indian Studies in the United States. Deloria also taught at the University of Colorado Boulder (1990–2000) and the University of Arizona College of Law (2000–2005). 

From 1964 to 1967, he served as executive director of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), reviving the organization and laying the foundation for its contemporary prominence. Under his leadership, NCAI’s membership grew from 19 to 156 tribes, gained financial stability, and brought its platform of tribal sovereignty to the attention of Congress and the executive branch. His book Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (1969), the first of more than twenty books he would write, became a centerpiece of the movement for tribal “self-determination,” a principle now recognized in tribal, federal, and international law. 

Deloria’s publications spanned several fields, including law, education, anthropology, philosophy, and religion. In God Is Red (1972; 1992), Deloria provided an outline of American Indian spirituality as opposed to monotheistic religious beliefs. In his later publications, Deloria increasingly criticized the role of Western science and scientific racism and their relationship to Indigenous knowledge systems.