With an allocation of $500,000 from Congress, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Dillon Myers establishes a branch of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) dedicated to “relocation services,” allowing Myers to expand nationwide the Relocation program first established for the Navajo (Dineh) (see entry for 1948). The Relocation program encourages reservation Indians to move to cities, where employees of the BIA assist them in finding jobs and housing. The BIA maintains that Relocation will greatly improve the quality of life of Indians, particularly those living on the poorest reservations. The federal government, however, also sees Relocation as a means of reducing the high cost of operating the reservation system.
Between 1952 and 1957, annual Relocation funding will grow to $3.5 million, and more than
17,000 Indians will receive assistance from the BIA’s Relocation services. Although some will find the good jobs and comfortable homes promised them by the BIA, many others will merely exchange rural poverty for urban poverty.
Creek pitcher Allie P. Reynolds plays his best season.
A Creek Indian star pitcher for the New York Yankees, Allie P. Reynolds leads the American League in strikeouts and in earned-run average. After attending Oklahoma State University on a track scholarship, Reynolds began playing professional baseball in 1942 for the Cleveland Indians. In 1972, he will be honored as one of the first inductees into the American Indian Athletic Hall of Fame (see entry for NOVEMBER 25, 1972).
World History
