The Great Plains has long been home to unconventional and
leading-edge politics, from the fiery Democratic presidential
candidate William Jennings Bryan to the country's first female U.S.
representative and first female governor to the nation's only
single-house state legislature. Great Plains Politics provides
a lively tour of the Great Plains region through the civic and
political contributions of its
citizens, demonstrating the importance of community in
the region.Great Plains Politics profiles six men and women who had
a profound impact on the civic and community life of the Great
Plains: Wilma Mankiller, the first woman chief of the Cherokee
Nation in Oklahoma and a political activist at both the local and
the national levels; Virginia Smith, an educator from Nebraska who
served as a U.S. representative in Congress; Junius Groves, an
African American farmer and community builder from Kansas; George
McGovern, a South Dakota senator whose 1972 presidential campaign
galvanized widespread grassroots support; Robert Dole, a Kansas
congressman and longtime senator as well as the Republican
candidate for U.S. president in 1988; and Harriet Elizabeth Byrd,
the first African American elected as a state representative in
Wyoming. The lives of these individuals illustrate the robust and
enduring civic and community involvement of inhabitants of the
Great Plains and presage a hopeful continuation of its storied
political tradition.