Field and Context

When Mankiller returned to Oklahoma in 1976, the Cherokee Nation hired her as an economic stimulus coordinator. With her expertise at preparing documentation, she became a successful grant writer, and by the early 1980s was directing the newly created Community Development Department of the Cherokee Nation. As Director she designed and supervised innovative community projects allowing rural citizens to identify their own challenges and, through their labor, participate in solving them. Interpretation should remain tied to dated works and institutional records.