Vine Deloria

Vine Victor Deloria Jr. (born 1933) was an American Standing Rock Sioux author, theologian, historian, professor, and activist who championed Native American rights and sovereignty. He served as executive director of the National Congress of American Indians (1964-1967), authored influential nonfiction works like Custer Died for Your Sins (1969) and God Is Red (1973), and established the first U.S. master's program in American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona. His writings critiqued U.S. policies, stereotypes, Western religion, and science from Indigenous perspectives, shaping the Red Power movement and modern Native studies.