Intertribal Friendship House (IFH) located in Oakland, CA was established in 1955 as one of the first urban American Indian community centers in the nation. It was founded by the American Friends Service Committee to serve the needs of American Indian people relocated from reservations to the San Francisco Bay Area. The Bay Area American Indian community is multi-tribal, made of Native people and their descendants—those who originate here and those who have come to the Bay region from all over the United States and from other parts of this hemisphere.

The Baltimore American Indian Center (BAIC) is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1968 with a mission to “assist and support American Indian and Alaskan Native families moving into an urban environment and adjusting to the culture change they will experience.” Following WWII, the neighborhood surrounding the BAIC became populated predominantly by American Indians and was referred to as “the Reservation.”

To support this Native American community, the BAIC provided services that included education, skills trainings, workforce development, child care, afterschool arts and seniors programs, as well as health and healing services. Over time, much of the American Indian ​community in Baltimore moved out of the city seeking more affordable housing and sustainable job opportunities. This demographic shift prompted BAIC to prioritize cultural heritage

preservation and education programs, with health, housing and employment-related services provided on an ad hoc basis. While the BAIC was founded by Lumbee Tribal Members, the Center is open to Native community members from all tribes and nations; 

We continue to serve as a hub for the American Indian community’s social and cultural activities. With 78% of American Indians and Alaskan Natives in the U.S. living outside of tribal territories, our organization is an essential resource.

The BAIC is the only resource in the greater Baltimore area where Natives can learn what it means to be American Indian and that educates non-Native people about the myriad cultures and legacies of American Indian and Alaskan Native peoples.

Our organization provides a welcoming, safe space for the Native community to gather; a place where people are treated with dignity, respect and understanding, and where cultural practices are kept alive.

​American Indian Politics and the American Political System (2018) novel by David Wilkins and Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark

freed from all Federal supervision and control and from all disabilities and limitations specially applicable to Indians. Between 1945 and 1960 the government processed 109 cases of termination “affecting a minimum of 1,362,155 acres and 11,466 individuals.”

Along with the termination resolution, Congress, just a few days later, also enacted Public Law 280, which conferred upon five states (California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, and Wisconsin) full criminal and some civil jurisdiction over Indian reservations (with certain reservations being exempted) and consented to the assumption of such jurisdiction by any other state. 

The final part of the termination policy trilogy was relocation, a federal policy aimed at the relocation of Indians from rural and reservation areas to designated urban “relocation centers.” In 1956 alone, the federal government spent $1 million to relocate more than 12,500 Indians to cities. The relocation policy was a coercive attempt to destroy Tribal communalism.

Important Military Conflict Years and Policies

1914-1920 During WWI the Indian Assimilation Era was still underway. 
1920's - United States granted citizenship to Native Americans through the Synder Act.
1934 - Indian Reorganization Act took place just before WWII began in 1939-1945.
1950-1960s - Indian Termination Era took place during the Korean War just before the Vietnam War.
1970s - United States granted Voting Rights for many Native Americans.
2022 - U.S. government created the first memorial dedicated to Native American contributions to military service in the defense of the United States (National Native American Veterans Memorial (NNAVM)).

Excerpt by Dr. Jere Franc
​
In 1940, cognizant of impending war, Congress once again declared Native Americans to be citizens in the Nationality Act. Because Selective Service registration had been conducted on Indian reservations since 1938, it appears that his act intended to reinforce the "duties" aspect of citizenship, namely military service. While tribal and individual Native American resistance to the act was minimal, the government early sought to define American Indian Indian status within a wartime society. The courts soon found this act useful. 

​When an Iroquois man claimed draft exemption based on the 1794 Treaty with the Six Nations and charged that the United States held no power to draft members of an independent nation who had ​

twice rejected American citizenship, the federal court "reluctantly" ruled against the young ​Onondaga man and declared that the interests of the United States overrode any prior treaty status of American Indians. "Where a domestic law conflicts with an earlier treaty, that the statute must be honored by the domestic courts has been well established," ruled Circuit Judge Jerome Frank.