Ruth Muskrat and the So-Called Indian Problem: The Fight for Native American Civil Rights

From Caldecott Medalist Rebecca Lee Kunz and award-winning filmmaker and TV host Jen Loren comes a sweeping biography of a singular woman at the heart of the movement for Native American civil rights in the 20th century.

The “Indian Problem”―that was the term used by the government in the 19th and 20th centuries. What to do with the hundreds of Native nations and tribes in and around the United States? When the goal wasn't destruction, it was assimilation. 

But Native people had their own plans―and one Cherokee woman, Ruth Muskrat Bronson, helped lead that charge. A poet, educator, and activist, Ruth knew that Native Americans could and should fight for their civil rights while still retaining their tribal identities. Speaking in front of the President to gain Native citizenship, penning groundbreaking poems and books, founding and leading the National Congress of American Indians, she left a legacy that still blazes brightly today. 

Sisters Rebecca Lee Kunz and Jen Loren―both nieces of Ruth and citizens of the Cherokee Nation―bring that legacy and the wider story of the Native American civil rights movement to richly imagined life.

Jen Loren (Cherokee Nation) is an Emmy Award–winning TV host, a filmmaker, and the senior director of Cherokee Film. As senior director, she sets strategy and oversees the entirety of operations for Cherokee Film Productions, Cherokee Film Studios, Cherokee Film Commission and the Cherokee Film Institute. Selected as an inaugural Obama Leader by the Obama Foundation in July 2023, Jen is globally recognized for her work, breaking new ground for Native American representation in film and media. Ruth Muskrat and the “Indian Problem” is her debut book. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Rebecca Lee Kunz (Cherokee Nation) grew up in Oklahoma and went on to earn a BFA in painting from the College of Santa Fe. Rebecca is an artist and the owner of Tree of Life Studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she runs her business and raises three daughters. Rebecca’s work draws upon traditional iconography and is greatly inspired by mythic and archetypal symbolism. Chooch Helped, her first book, was awarded the Caldecott Medal as the most distinguished American picture book for children.