[1] Helen Louise White was born on August 3, 1915, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Bennett County, South Dakota to Lucy (née Henderson) and Robert B.

Peterson developed cultural programs and met with city leaders to provide lecture series on issues, such as fair labor and housing laws.

[7][8] The organization, founded in 1944 to fight against the government's Indian termination policy was in disarray, on the verge of bankruptcy, and was facing pressure from President Dwight D. Eisenhower for its dissolution.

[12][9] Because of Peterson's experience in organizing minority programs, she was able to slow the assimilationist aims of Congress and assist tribes in asserting their own sovereign rights.

[20] In 1958, Peterson and NCAI president Joseph R. Garry went to Puerto Rico to study the methods of Operation Bootstrap, which had transformed the economic relationship between the island and the United States government.

[21] In 1960, at the invitation of Sol Tax, an anthropologist, Peterson met with McNickle and John Rainer to prepare materials for a conference to be held in Chicago the following year.

The declaration also called for the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to be replaced by a Commission of six members, half of whom were Native American, to evaluate issues effecting tribes.

[24] The Indian Relocation Act of 1956 caused a large influx of Native Americans to the Denver area, but Congress had failed to sufficiently fund the program.

[25] Peterson's office tried to fill the gap by providing social and employment services, as well as job training for Denver's Native American community.

Burnette was forced out in 1964 and replaced by Vine Deloria Jr., who had the difficult task of trying to bring the organization back to financial stability and heal the factionalism.

[28] After eight years, of directing the Commission, Peterson accepted a position with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), working as a field liaison officer and coordinator with the United States Customs Service in Denver.

[7] She remained an active member in the NCAI through the early 1990s, participating in the 1993 Albuquerque conference held at the University of New Mexico on developing inter-tribal relationships.