American Indian Center

[1] It provides social services, youth and senior programs, cultural learning, and meeting opportunities for Native American peoples.

[4] Throughout the early twentieth century, women’s philanthropic clubs had been the primary providers of social services for Native Americans arriving in Chicago.

One of those clubs was the First Daughters of America, founded in 1930 by opera singer Tsianina Blackstone (Muscogee/Cherokee), Anna Fitzgerald (Chippewa), and other Chicago-area Native American women.

In addition to the Oneida, Ojibwa, Menominee, Sac and Fox, and Potawatomi of the north woods, Lakota, Navajo, Blackfoot, Papago, and many others were represented.

John Willard, the executive director of the AFSC in Chicago played a key role in organizing and raising funds for the project.

One of its longest-running social and educational programs is the annual pow-wow, and it has also organized study opportunities, exhibits, and conferences with academic institutions.

Protestors using the name Chicago Indian Village (CIV) borrowed a ceremonial teepee from AIC, which became the symbolic center of a protest camp to demand and draw attention to the need for better housing for Native Americans in the city.