For many Americans, the decade of the 1960s brought about a profound rethinking of individual and collective values. Some basic, long-standing ideals – such as an undying faith in the country's progress, the infallibility of the nation's leaders, and the desirability of achieving the American Dream of middle-class comfort and materialism – came under critique in an atmosphere shaped by the civil rights, counterculture, and antiwar movements. In Hippies, Indians, and the Fight for Red Power, author Sherry L. Smith finds that these broader social changes turned out to be a boon for American Indians. Beginning with young adherents to the counterculture, who saw in Native Americans what they found lacking in modern culture and society, large segments of the public came to believe the maxim that “America needs Indians” (4). This was a profound shift away from the conventional notion that Native Americans were impediments to progress who had to be either forcibly eliminated or assimilated into American society. Importantly, this new affection translated into widespread support for what was becoming an increasingly vocal and ambitious Native American political agenda. Tribal efforts to end the federal policy of termination while advancing self-determination, sovereignty, treaty rights, and cultural revitalization depended upon a broad spectrum of society recognizing value in popular notions of American Indian culture.

Much of the book represents an effort by Smith to explain how this happened. More specifically, Smith explores the linkages between the interest the counterculture developed in American Indians and the wider support for the Red Power movement, or the rise of American Indian activism. Surprisingly, few scholars of either the 1960s or American Indians have looked at these connections, despite the prominence of American Indian-related imagery and rhetoric in the materials generated by the counterculture. Such gaps are perhaps explained by the shallowness of popular interest, which was too often rooted in romantic and limiting stereotypes of Native peoples, leading scholars to dismiss them. Smith recognizes such notions as problematic but worthy of serious inquiry, contending that the American Indian resurgence of the late twentieth century could not have been achieved without the substantial support of non-Indians.

The Pacific Northwest “fish-ins” of the 1960s, for example, began as an effort by the National Indian Youth Council and area tribes to exercise treaty rights. Tribal fishermen publicly flouting state fishing regulations were soon joined by celebrities Marlon Brando and Dick Gregory, who brought media attention and legitimacy to the struggle by framing American Indian issues in terms familiar to a country conditioned by the civil rights movement. Scores of non-Indians joined the fish-ins, including both mainstream church members and “hippies” recruited through the underground press. Moreover, alliances were announced by groups making up the broad political coalition known as the New Left. When federal courts handed down the 1974 Boldt decision affirming tribal fishing rights, the lion's share of the credit belonged to American Indian activists. The supporting cast of non-Indians, however, was an “important, perhaps even crucial element” (42) contributing to the victory. Similar arguments for the backing lent by non-Indians frame the discussions of such topics as the rise of the counterculture in California, the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island, “back-to-the-land” movements, the prominence of American Indian issues in the national discourse of the early 1970s, and the 1972 Wounded Knee occupation.

Indeed, Smith charts such widespread support over time for American Indian issues that it calls into question the emphasis on hippies suggested by the book's title. Perhaps the clearest statement of these complicated relationships is when Smith argues that the counterculture was in the vanguard of a popular turn towards American Indians that “culturally primed” (45) people to support Indian issues. American Indians then capitalized on this fascination, even as they found it troublesome, expanding their support across a broader spectrum of society. Readers might wish that the book gave a better sense of how both this popular interest and the ability of American Indians to take advantage of it has a longer history and also continues to the present day (the former is adeptly chronicled by Smith's previous work). Nonetheless, Smith makes a tremendous contribution to our understanding of the multiple and overlapping threads of 1960s activism. Hippies, Indians, and the Fight for Red Power illustrates in often convincing and always thought-provoking ways how the American Indian causes of the era were predicated on fundamental changes in popular thinking and widespread backing by non-Indians.