Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to serve as chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, delivered the keynote at a rural community conference in Montana.

Mankiller offered a lesson in mobilizing rural communities from her tribe. She said one community kept asking the tribe and the federal government for a water line and housing.

Mankiller instead proposed the community take up the project itself. She said residents eagerly responded to the challenge.

"The community had important new assets, besides just the way they felt about their community, and the water and the new homes," Mankiller said, The Billings Gazette reported. "They had a new sense of self as a community."

The Northern Plains Initiative Conference: Mobilizing Rural Communities ends today.

Get the Story:
Cherokee ex-chief tells how communities can progress (The Billings Gazette 10/9)