yeah there it goes yeah. What I would like to also have to some of the
points that I made was I think it was in the year 1975 when the Indian
Self Determination Act was passed by Congress and it's ironic that the
Republican administration had to propose that to U. S. Congress and I
remember it was Richard Nixon who had a great role in understanding the
need for such congressional at for the indian people to use. And he had
some good advisors that not necessarily coming from indian country or not
necessarily uh having a close advisors that were of american indian, but
some of the people that was around him that he uh was surrounded with uh
really basically believe in education, the self determination of indian
tribes, indian nation and south governments, that's what they believe in.
And so as a result of all of that influence,
President Nixon was able to support and proposed to Congress the passage
of the uh huh american indian self determination act. And uh the Navajo
Nation,
they simply, they simply uh where the one group that was doing all of that
even before the passage of the act. And uh and one of those uh good
evidence to show that was the uh the establishment of neighborhood
community college and Navajo community college was really conceived bye.
Never who tribal chairman Raymond Nakai. And then bob russell people like
I Gorman and those people really really believe in education that that's
hardly was also one of them and they believe in education and and I
remember the the neighborhood nation education committee really being
supportive and they ask bob russell too, get involved and see if they can
produce. Mhm. Um the first american indian community college. And so bob
russell spearheaded that. And uh and as we now know, and as history can
now say, uh that was such a tremendous beginning. Uh so far as higher
education institutions for the american indians to have the neighborhood
community college become the first shots institution exercise and created
by the largest american indian tribe in the United States and that voice
or that kind of yeah, program was needed everywhere. And it was only
appropriated the Navajo nation did what they did and they did all of this
at the support of the federal government. And I remember sometimes right
along at that at that point, uh
a meeting somewhere and say lee where you now currently have a naval
community college located. The chairman of the Yeah,
I believe it was ways and means committee. The, the chair
was present at the groundbreaking ceremony. And so he, I mean, some for
somebody uh, of that high caliber in a federal government was so much
power for that person to come to a small indian community there where
there was nothing where they were making a groundbreaking ceremony to me
was really, really something I forgot the gentleman's name that came, but
I'll remember it later and he set some terrific things about supporting in
an education and I remember here in,
yeah, the tribal council who are members of the education committee really
being enthusiastic about this new beginning where the indian people
nationwide, they will now begin having some of their own community college
in there in their own community with their own tribe back on those
reservations. And that was really, really something for me to see. And I
was just a young man working at DNA when, when I saw that. And to me uh,
then that college which is now called in their college
was one of those institutions that its potential was was unlimited. It
could do many things, it could mean so many things to different people.
And so the way people look at it was different in the sense that it made a
lot too many of their parents under neighborhood nation. And of course, we
now know that as the net college, which was a institution that spearheaded
the movements of indian people to establish their own community college
within their own tribe. All that this was done as
the Navajo people were learning how to get involved in the exercise of
their voting rights. I believe it was in the mid 1970s,
the Navajo people finally realized that, but it's a sheer number and by
voter registration and by them becoming politically active where they can
elect school board members to control the local schools, where they can
elect people in their own county county border supervisors and those kinds
of positions they could very well control. But it had to be demonstrated
by, you know, the first action of any kind of institution building that
can be promoted by the Navajo people themselves. I think Navajo Community
College was only an institution that came about as a result of that. I
could remember in Apache County there was a lot of controversy in Apache
County because up to that point, there were no county board of supervisors
that was a member of the Navajo tribe. But yet in that county majority of
the voters were Navajo people and we always did not see that connection
between uh huh the power to vote and how we can exercise that and learn
how to control things within the county. And it was Apache County and the
lawsuit that DNA was able to file and as a result of what we were doing
that came out in the newspaper, a lot of public education was, was given
to the Navajo people through that case. And of course with the
neighborhood people winning the right to vote in these various election at
the state level in the county election also brought about a tremendous
amount of education to the local Navajo youngsters. And it was perhaps at
this time also that the Navajo people were also getting involved in a lot
of the state racist, uh huh where uh huh margins of Navajo voters were the
deciding factor in the election. Local officials and one really good case
in point was the office of the governor in the state of Arizona. I don't
remember what year that was, but that was the year that a democrat Raul
Castro won the governor's seat in the state of Arizona purely on the basis
of the Navajo voter turnout in that election. And uh, the uh, the way the
situation was at that point or at that time was that when they were
counting the votes that came in from the various county, the last vote at
the end of the night came in from Apache County. And, and Raul Castro had
went overwhelmingly in Apache County simply because the county was
heavily populated with democratic voters. And so as a result of what the
neighborhood nation did, uh, a democratic governor was elected and that
opened the eyes of many, many are there candidates and subsequent to what
happened in Arizona every time we had a tribal fair each year in september
particularly during the election year. You would see all these politicians
heavily involved in the parades at the Navajo tribal affair, both from
Arizona and new Mexico and some occasion from the state of Utah And of
course then federal election when people are facing elections in the
federal government. When these from these three states, you always see
politicians that are running for this federal office seeking never hold a
vote. And I believe in my own situation my, the last time I was in office
, Hillary Clinton came to represent her husband, Bill Clinton at the
neighborhood nation fair and spoke very highly of the neighborhood
people's involvement in in voter registration and then the ability to turn
out the vote so that they finally will have a, have a say so in the
election of officials that will work with them. And so basically that was
kind of like awakening of a political power than ever where people can
exercise. And while all of these were happening, uh, on the neighborhood
across the nation, people, the Navajo people were looking at, they did not
overlook the, the development of the school board where they saw where
they said that we could control the school, if we can get majority level
people and we can elect them. We can control our own school system. And
they were talking about the public school system. And so to me, there was
a huge amount of progress that took place During this time, the late 1970s
and early 80s, what the neville people were doing and that was all
basically done because of the voter education that the Navajo nation was
involved in. And then from there it picked up and into the county
elections and in new Mexico, all those counties that come into the Navajo
nation, There was always, uh, somebody from the Navajo nation that was
running for state office, county seats and uh, and all of that. And so it
was a tremendous
assertion of political power by the, by the Navajo people.
Okay. Shut her off for a minute. Yeah.