The Rhetoric of American IndianActivism in the 1960s and 1970s1John Sanchez and Mary E. StuckeyPolitical rhetoric in a democracy is, in at least some sense, educative and constitutiveeven as it is instrumentally persuasive. For members of ethnic,racial,or culturalgroups that lie outside of the dominant culture, the educative processes that underliepolicy advocacy require attention to specific cultures, traditions, historicalexperiences, and group interests. Thus, even though all out-groups share manycommon challenges, they all face unique situations aswell.This essay explores theserhetorical challenges and some of the strategies designed to meet them through anexamination of the political rhetoric of American Indian activists from the 1972Trail of Broken Treaties through the 1973 siege at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.Particular attention is paid to the question of audience.KEY CONCEPTS American Indians, Native Americans, social movements,American Indian MovementJohnSanchez (M.A., 1989, Ohio State University), is an Assistant Professor inthe College of Communications at The Pennsylvania State University.MaryE.Stuckey(Ph.D., 1987, University of Notre Dame), is an Associate Professor ofCommunication and Political Science at Georgia State University. This paperwas originally prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the NationalCommunication Association, November 1998. The authors thank John A.Courtright, John M. Murphy, and the anonymous reviewers for theirassistance in preparing and improving this essay.Political rhetoric in a democracy is, in at least some sense educative and thusconstitutive, even as it is instrumentally persuasive. For those who participatein the dominant culture, the educative component can be based upon a set ofwidely shared assumptions about how democracy works and what ethical actions canbe presumed to include. The challenge is to place the rhetor's political preferenceswithin that context and to explain how those preferences embody the ideals of thedominant culture. For members of ethnic, racial, or cultural groups that lie outside ofthe dominant culture, however, the educative processes that underlie policy advocacygo much further back, and are far more complicated.
