[Directions to Polling Place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation]

Mapping the long drive to the polling place on an Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

This set of sketched and printed directions offered a valuable election resource to the inhabitants of South Dakota’s Medicine Root District, part of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The community hall in Kyle was one of the few available polling places, so residents of Martin (36 miles) and Pine Ridge (50 miles) had a long and expensive drive to cast their vote. Political activism among indigenous populations increased markedly after the Indian Civil Rights Act (1968).

The handbill is undated, but handwritten notes indicate James White Dress as Judge and Lily Mae One Feather as Clerk for the election in question. Both were historically significant figures in Oglala Lakota tribal politics and reflect a probable intersecting date of c. 1970. Possibly issued in response to the American Indian Movement, founded in Minneapolis in 1968.