The wave of Black Power reached not only white Americans, but also awoke national pride in such groups as Native Americans and Mexican Americans.
In the 1950s, the US government provided a policy of assimilation toward Indians – they were forced to move to cities to adjust to American style of living. The policy proved to be a failure – the uprooted Indians had difficulty adjusting to urban life and suffered from the loss of land. By 1961, the United States Commission on Civil Rights noted that for Indians, "poverty and deprivation are common".
Inspired by the Civil Rights movement and dissatisfied with the life conditions, in the 1960s, Indians began to demonstrate their cultural pride demanding "Red Power" and insisting on the name "Native Americans". They claimed that Indians suffered the worst poverty, and the poorest education and housing in the USA. Following the African-Americans' example, Indians practiced "fish-in" demonstrations – they fished in the Columbia River to assert old treaty rights, and the Wampanoag Indians in Massachusetts transformed Thanksgiving Day into a National Day of Mourning. A radical organization AIM (the American Indian Movement) was founded to protect Indians from police harassment.
Indian activism brought results – other Americans became more aware of Native American needs. Officials in all branches of government had to respond to pressure for equal treatment, and in 1992, Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado was elected the Senate's first Native American member.
Whites' dominance was also challenged by Mexican-Americans, who were led by a charismatic leader Cesar Chavez – a migrant farm worker since childhood. Chavez created the National Farm Workers Association which aimed to improve working conditions for Mexican-American farm laborers. This organization helped to get better wages for field hands and stimulate ethnic conscience and pride. By the mid 1960s, young Hispanic activists insisted on using the term "Chicano" to name people of Mexican and Latin-American decent. They called for bilingual education, rejected assimilation, and fought for Chicano studies programs.
The same kind of movement was founded by Asian Americans, who rejected the pejorative term "Oriental" and tried to signify a new ethnic consciousness among immigrants from the Far East. They also campaigned for special educational programs and wider opportunities for Asian Americans.
All these movements showed the growing consciousness of the ethnic groups that led to the change of the attitude of society toward them.
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