Mankiller: Activist. Feminist. Cherokee Chief

Wilma Mankiller became the Cherokee Nation's first woman Principal Chief in 1985. This film is the story of her life and achievements and carries extra significance as the third award-winning film about Native Americans produced by Mohl (Cherokee) and Gale Anne Hurd. Through Mankiller's own words, using interview clips with and about her, viewers learn how this girl, born poor and isolated in rural Oklahoma and forcibly relocated by the government to San Francisco, became an activist for Indian rights in the turbulent 1960s. Back in Oklahoma, she became a community leader, always fighting for the Native American right to self-determination and eventually winning the Cherokee Nation control of its funding, programs, and services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This extraordinary accomplishment was also part of her fight for gender equality. Her leadership and courage earned Mankiller the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998.