Talk:Raymond Cross

Contested deletion

This article should not be speedily deleted for lack of asserted importance because Raymond Cross is a prominent figure in Native American legal history. The book "Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes, and the Trial that Forged a Nation" by Paul Vandevelder chronicles Cross' legal battles as an attorney, including two court cases he argued before the US Supreme Court, to establish principles of Native American tribal sovereignty.

After setting new precedents through his supreme court cases, Cross returned to his reservation as a lawyer 30 years after it was flooded by the Garrison Dam and retroactively secured just compensation for his tribe through tireless petitioning of the government. The flooding of the Fort Berthold Reservation by the Garrison Dam is a widely-studied and recognized example of Federal infringement on US treaty agreements. The Garrison dam displaced over 80% of tribal members, including Cross as a child, and and flooded the majority of the tribe's agricultural land. After this event, tribal members were scattered, their communities and extended families flung to different shores of the 200-mile-long Lake Sakakawea, their centuries-long agricultural practices destroyed.

Cross grew up in poverty without running water or electricity as the youngest of ten siblings. When his family was forcibly relocated to Parshall after his community was flooded he recalls "that first year in Parshall, we lived in some abandoned shacks. They weren’t much more than chicken coops, really. For a while there, we moved from shack to shack. In my earliest memories, I’m completely alone in one of those shacks, looking out the window at a world that was utterly foreign to me.” (Quoted from Coyote Warrior.) Cross rose from impoverishment to attend Stanford, Yale Law, and Harvard Kennedy School. Cross is considered a Native American hero: His story was included in the book "Native Men of Courage", a young adult book on Native American heroes and his story is told in multiple other books and articles.

The population of Native Americans in the US is low and therefore the volume of articles on his life may not as high as other civil rights leaders, but Native Americans are a critical part of this nation's history and tribal sovereignty remains an important topic in American law. Cross' supreme court cases are taught in Native American law courses in law schools throughout the US.

Books to support his notability: 1) The book "Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes, and the Trial that Forged a Nation" which describes the story of Cross (the "one man") and his legal battles for justice of the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara tribe 2) The book "Native Men of Courage" a young adult book on Native American heroes https://books.google.com/books?id=cRhWJAAACAAJ&source=gbs_book_other_versions 3) The book "Savages and Scoundrels" also chronicles his legal achievements

Articles to support his notability: 1) Biography of Raymond Cross in Stanford Magazine https://stanfordmag.org/contents/in-the-name-of-the-fathers 2) State Historical Society of North Dakota Award https://www.minotdailynews.com/news/local-news/2019/05/heritage-profile-honor/ 3) Freedom Fighters: Eight Courageous Native Americans https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/freedom-fighters-8-courageous-native-americans. Others in this list like Winona LaDuke have a wikipedia page 4) Daily Emerald https://www.dailyemerald.com/archives/former-tribal-lawyer-speaks-on-native-american-progress/article_4d558026-3eae-51a1-b80a-293ada8ea5ae.html