| Eugene Crawford (1928-1986), Sisseton Sioux, became the first and only executive
director of the National Indian Lutheran Board, formed by Lutheran Council in the U.S.A.
in 1970 to enable, facilitate and give direction to American Indian programs in the
churches. Charles Deegan, Chippewa, was elected NILB's first president. Crawford, son
of a Presbyterian clergyman, served as executive director of the American Indian Center in
Omaha before joining the Lutheran Council in the USA. More than any one person in recent
years, he was the catalyst of what we now see in Lutheran American Indian ministry. He was
said to have "cut a large trail across Indian and church land" as he served as
college lecturer and an advisor for film companies, the government, and the boards of two
major universities. An advocate for Native American Indian causes, Crawford served as a
mediator at the Wounded Knee and Alcatraz occupations in the mid-1970s. Though not a
Lutheran when he began work with the NILB, he became a Lutheran prior to his death in
1986, because of the commitment of Lutherans to ministry with American Indians.
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