Dolly Akers

“Dolly Akers will be remembered differently by those who benefited from her actions and those whose shins got bruised.”

“Assertive and self-reliant—as she believed tribes should be—Akers achieved many notable accomplishments in her lifetime, but not without conflict and criticism.”

“I am a very necessary evil. I try to stay in the background, but every now and then I have to come out and kick somebody in the shins.”

“The archaic protective rules and laws merely tend to hamper the Indian people from attaining their final goal of self-sufficiency, which is the goal of Congress for the Interior Department to foster.”

“There can be no real solution of the so-called ‘Indian problem’ unless the Interior Department embraces the principle of self-determination of Indian people by actual practice”

“Why should Indian people be forced to live under a law made some 80 years ago? That is the year in which the Indian Commissioner referred to Indians as ‘wild beasts!”

“I am a very necessary evil. I try to stay in the background, but every now and then I have to come out and kick some body in the shins.”