As the first Lakota to serve in the United States Congress, Ben Reifel made a career of straddling two distinct cultures. A bilingual member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, Reifel often found his ideas challenged by American Indian activists. Sean Flynn shares how Reifel advocated for his people to become self-reliant citizens, not by abandoning traditional values, but through education and integration. In the end, Reifel viewed himself as a modern Indian leader, versed in his native tongue and culture, college educated, and looking beyond reservation boundaries.
Sean J. Flynn is a professor and the Chair of History at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South Dakota, where twice he has been awarded for his teaching excellence. Flynn earned his BA from South Dakota State University, and his MA and PhD from Texas Tech University. He is the author of Without Reservation: Benjamin Reifel and American Indian Acculturation (2018) and Chief, Marine Corps Warrior (2003), which chronicles his father’s aviation com-bat record in World War II and in the Korean War, as well as his POW captivity during the Korean War. Flynn is currently at work on a book about Senator Karl Mundt and the Cold War.
This video was made possible by our partner, the South Dakota Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.