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BOOK REVIEW

“WITHOUT RESERVATION BENJAMIN REIFEL & AMERICAN INDIAN ACCULTURATION” By: Sean J. Flynn

 

 

Please enjoy Anita’s profound and thoughtful review!

Benjamin Reifel was born on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation and was a son of a Lakota mother and a German American father. Reifel’s personal values, political outlook, and views on the Indian condition was the product of his upbringing in a biracial household. Ben grew up in a rich bilingual environment, but his mother insisted her son learn to read, write, and speak English. Reifel’s mother told him to assimilate, yet still ensured that Ben was exposed to the traditional ways of her people.

In October 1925, Reifel started his secondary education at the School of Agriculture at South Dakota State. The school offered a four-year course study in agriculture with a high school equivalency. With his arrival to Brookings, Ben found a new and bewildering world—it was his longest trip from home, his first train ride, his first experience of electric lights, and running water. Ben worked hard and he advanced quickly through English, math, horticulture, and in three years earned his diploma a year earlier than his classmates. Upon graduating, Reifel at the age of 22, applied to SDSC where he was admitted to Brookings on the very first college loans that were available to American Indians. A popular student leader, Ben was known in the wider community in Brookings as the “half breed Sioux student body president of South Dakota State”. In 1932, Ben graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree.

As a young civil servant in the 1930’s and 1940’s Reifel’s career started with the Indian New Deal and its centerpiece legislation, the Indian Reorganization Act. Ben’s signature message “EDUCATION is the PATHWAY to Indian Success – was formed in the era of New Deal programs. By the time he was 28 years old, Benjamin Reifel was given a large district encompassing the states of Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, and Wyoming. The promotion changed his life. It drew him closer to officials in the Washington office and placed him in an important advisory capacity. His performance as a field agent accelerated his advancement in the bureau that he would one day lead.

Republicans dominated South Dakota politics in the 1940’s and early 1950’s. But the elections of 1956 and 1958 were a disaster for them. For the first time since 1934, South Dakota elected a Democrat as governor. Stung by the results, the Republicans committed themselves to finding a candidate for the 1960 race in the First House District. On March 16, 1960 Benjamin announced publicly that he was resigning from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to become a candidate for the United States House of Representatives. It was also possible that Benjamin Reifel would have been named commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1961 had he not decided to run for Congress.

WITHOUT RESERVATION is truly an insightful book. It tells the story of a man, who worked tirelessly for his people, the Lakota, and all American Indians.

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