Chief Standing Bear, whose landmark lawsuit in 1879 established {that a} Native American is an individual underneath the regulation, is on a brand new postage stamp.

The U.S. Postal Service launched a Forever stamp on Friday honoring the Ponca tribe chief, a civil rights icon recognized for his “I Am a Man” speech.

The stamp’s launch comes 146 years after the U.S. Army forcibly eliminated Chief Standing Bear and a few 700 different members of the tribe from their homeland in northeast Nebraska. Standing Bear’s son was amongst those that died of starvation and illness after the tribe’s 600-mile journey on foot to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma.

The U.S. Postal Service has issued a Forever stamp honoring Standing Bear, the Ponca chief who championed 14th Amendment rights.

U.S. Postal Service

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U.S. Postal Service

The U.S. Postal Service has issued a Forever stamp honoring Standing Bear, the Ponca chief who championed 14th Amendment rights.

U.S. Postal Service

When Standing Bear made the perilous journey again to Nebraska to honor his son with a burial within the tribe’s homeland in 1879, he was arrested and imprisoned at Fort Omaha.

His arrest was the catalyst for a lawsuit that led to an 1879 ruling that decided a Native American was an individual underneath the regulation with an inherent proper to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

At the top of his two-day trial in a Nebraska federal court docket, the choose honored his request to talk. Through a translator, Standing Bear delivered a brief however striking speech that included the well-known 4 phrases that asserted his humanity. Extending his proper hand, he informed Federal Judge Elmer Dundy, “That hand is not the color of yours, but if I pierce it, I shall feel pain. If you pierce your hand, you also feel pain. The blood that will flow from mine will be of the same color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both.”

The choose agreed. Native Americans deserved the identical authorized protections as different Americans, he dominated.

In a statement, Candace Schmidt, the chairwoman of the Ponca Tribe, celebrated the stamp as a “symbol of the pride and perseverance for all of our members past, present and future.”

“It took our country far too long to recognize the humanity in many of its people — including the American Indians who lived in these lands for thousands of years,” mentioned Anton Hajjar, vice chairman of the USPS Board of Governors.