ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.
The phones are down in Sonny Weahkee's cluttered office on a quiet street near the University of New Mexico. But Weahkee, a Navajo, Cochiti and Zuni Pueblo Indian with a dark ponytail and a patient, gentle way of speaking, is still working on this late July day. As the executive director of the nonprofit Sacred Alliance for Grassroots Equality (SAGE) Council, he has his hands full mobilizing New Mexico's sizeable Native American population to vote in the upcoming presidential election.
Other Native American activist groups, such as the Washington, D.C.-based National Congress of American Indians and the Oklahoma-based Indigenous Democratic Network, or INDN's List, have mounted similar efforts across the country, working to raise awareness among candidates and voters of the need for better-funded Native healthcare and education. "If we stand together and vote together on whatever issue, we can start to gain some momentum and start turning people's heads," Weahkee says.
And if they go to the polls, Native Americans could easily swing some Western battleground states -- especially New Mexico, where they represent nearly 6 percent of registered voters.
As written in the Navajo-Hopi Observer on September 15, 2008, more than 100 tribal leaders endorse Obama. Read more about it on the Navajo-Hopi Observer and Navajo Times websites:
http://wwwnavajohopiobserver.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=7218
http://www.navajotimes.com/politics/0908/092508obama.php
Seeing about posting some graphics and other peripheral thoughts on Native Americans this blog. I created this graphic in under 5 minutes, so have fun with it and suggest more from me.
