According to its website, the organization's mission is as follows: to promote greater self-determination, socio-economic self-sufficiency, spiritual enhancement, intercultural understanding and other forms of empowerment for the North American Indian Community and to assist North American Indians in obtaining an improved quality of life by providing health, job training, education, housing, and other related programs and social services.
[2] During this period the Native American population in Boston and other cities was growing rapidly, and urban centers like the BIC arose to provide health care and other services.
[3] Founding members of the BIC included writer Mildred Noble,[2] American Indian psychologist Carolyn Attneave,[4] Canadian activist Anna Mae Aquash[5] and the artist Philip Young, both of whom were of the Micmac nation.
[6] In 1970, BIC joined with members of the American Indian Movement in what became "Day of Mourning" in Patuxet, in contrast to the colonial holiday of Thanksgiving.
[10] The organization was reorganized as a nonprofit corporation in 1991 and provides services to the Native American population (about 6,000) in and around the greater Boston area.