until the Civil Rights movement, where American Indians found a political platform.

During the 1960s through the 1980s, American Indians expressed their long-silenced

opinions through public protests directed toward specific museums and exhibits.

Museums responded with a range of reactions. Some museums recoiled at the

questioning of curatorial and scientific authority. Other museums began to recognize the

habitual absence of the Native voice and the insensitive manner in which museums

portrayed Native Americans (Cooper 2008). Televised demonstrations from the 1970s-

1980s reminded the public that Native Americans continue to participate in

contemporary society. The news coverage exposed non-Native citizens for the first

time to the collective grievances Native Americans had with museum practices

concerning Native collections (Cooper 2008).

Public Protest: Values and Voice

      Native protests against exhibitions practices led museums to consider building

working partnerships with Native communities. Past exhibition practices focused on

American Indians became a catalyst for protests against museum policy and practice.

Lenore Keshig-Tobias (Ojibwa) (Cooper 2008, 1) poignantly explains, "When someone

else is telling your stories, in effect what they're doing is defining to the world, who you

are, what you are, and what they think you are and what they think you should be." A

keystone example of Native disapproval of museum policy and presentation emerged in

reaction to the Canadian Glenbow Museum's 1988 exhibition: The Spirit Sings: Artistic

Traditions of Canada's First Peoples. The exhibit was highly anticipated by museum-

goers because it promised to display some of Canada's First Nations objects that had

never been publically exhibited. First Nations opposition was ignited initially by an oil

company, who was involved in land claim disputes with the Lubicon Lake Band of Cree,