Roger Jourdain

[2] Additionally, Jourdain was a leading member of the "Young Man's Council", a group of Red Lake citizens desirous of governmental reform.

Shortly after taking office, he reopened the closed Indian Health Service hospital in the town of Red Lake and worked successfully to bring running water to the reservation.

[3] Jourdain spent considerable amounts of time in Washington, D.C., lobbying both for federal support and for the protection of Red Lake's tribal sovereignty.

[5] Jourdain worked closely with other tribes, initiating a 1967 intertribal boycott of businesses in Bemidji, Minnesota, which contains a significant Native American population.

[5] In the late 1970s, Stephanie Hanson, the Red Lake secretary-treasurer, accused Jourdain's administration of "nepotism [and] favoritism," and declined to pay Tribal Council members after a missed meeting.

Following this action, a riot erupted on the reservation during which Jourdain's home and several government facilities were burned; two teenagers died during the unrest, and damages sustained totaled $4 million.