Thomas Daschle: “The man in this photograph is the great-great-great-grandson of Sitting Bull, one of the most extraordinary leaders…”

“The man in this photograph is the great-great-great-grandson of Sitting Bull, one of the most extraordinary leaders America has ever produced. His name is Ron. His horse is Thunder. He is part of the new generation of American Indian leaders. He is a lawyer by training, but education is his life's work. He is president of the Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, ND, on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, and chairman of the President's Board of Advisors on Tribal Colleges and Universities. The subtitle of this article expresses a fundamental truth that Sitting Bull taught and that people I talk with throughout Indian Country still believe today: Education is the key to a better future for the American Indian people. Education, more than anything else, gives a person the power to determine his or her own destiny. It is the most effective tool there is to relieve the grinding poverty that exists today in too many tribal communities throughout America.”