The National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) was established in 1961.
Its aims were:
Primarily to protect NA fishing rights in the north-west of the country.
- However, it developed and took on lawsuits to protect treaty rights, voting rights and religious freedom.
- Set up by young Native Americans (similar to SNCC formed in 1960 after Greensboro Sit-In).
- It used direct actionprotests as a means to pursue its goals- for example fish-ins, and during the 1960s, NIYC acted primarily as a civil rights organization.
This was a clear indication of a change in NA attitudes and of a willingness to unite in protest.
One of the clearest examples of this being in 1964 when hundreds of NAs assembled in Washington for recognition as part of Johnson’s ‘War on Poverty’ in the Poor People’s Campaign.
At its peak it boasted a membership of over 15,000.
