Dolly Akers

"I am a very necessary evil. I try to stay in the background, but every now and then I have to come out and kick some body in the shins."

"Why should Indian people be forced to live under a law made some 80 years ago? That is the year in which the Indian Commissioner referred to Indians as ‘wild beasts!"

"There can be no real solution of the so-called ‘Indian problem’ unless the Interior Department embraces the principle of self-determination of Indian people by actual practice"

"The archaic protective rules and laws merely tend to hamper the Indian people from attaining their final goal of self-sufficiency, which is the goal of Congress for the Interior Department to foster."

"Assertive and self-reliant—as she believed tribes should be—Akers achieved many notable accomplishments in her lifetime, but not without conflict and criticism."

"Dolly Akers will be remembered differently by those who benefited from her actions and those whose shins got bruised."