I don’t think anybody anywhere can talk about the future of their people or of an organization without talking about education. Whoever controls the education of our children controls our future.

Wilma Mankiller (1945–2010), the first woman elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, repeatedly emphasized education as central to Native self-determination and long-term community health. Her leadership in the 1980s and 1990s focused on rebuilding infrastructure and expanding social services, while also advocating for educational opportunity as a lever for political and economic sovereignty. The quote reflects a broader Indigenous historical experience in which schooling was used both as a tool of forced assimilation (e.g., boarding schools) and, when controlled by Native communities, as a means of cultural survival and nation-building. In that context, “control” of education is inseparable from control over language, history, and civic future.

Mankiller argues that education is not a neutral public good but a decisive arena of power. To speak about a people’s future—whether a nation, community, or organization—is to speak about who shapes the next generation’s knowledge, values, and sense of identity. The second sentence sharpens the point: curricula, governance, and access determine what children learn about themselves and the world, which in turn determines political agency and collective direction. The quote also implies a warning: when outsiders control schooling, they can steer a community’s future away from its own priorities. Conversely, educational self-governance becomes a strategy for cultural continuity, leadership development, and sovereignty.