[The differences in goals and methods of black militancy and red nationalism is a subject fraught with confusion and misunderstanding for the general public, both black and white.] Deloria's very equivocation as to any mutual relevance of the red and the black movements [in Custer Died for Your Sins] is characteristic of the thinking of many young Indians and thus informative. Another chapter—that on Indian humor—would have elucidated the Indian mood very well for the average, uninformed American and helped to explain what "Custer Died for Your Sins" implies. These chapters and those dealing with the central issue of treaties in Indian political ideology, the history of cross-purposes in Indian administration, the nature of Indian leadership, the interplay of cultural and social forces between country- and urban-based Indians, the range from assimilationists to traditionalists among Indians, and even Deloria's personal preferences as to policy and program reform justify the subtitle of his book as An Indian Manifesto rather than just An Indian's Manifesto….

The book is certainly crotchety, and the three chapters dealing with anthropologists, missionaries, and the government are fully comprehensible only to an often infighting ingroup rather than to the general public for whom the book is intended. Nevertheless, whatever personal bias Deloria brings to his writing out of his more white than Siouan ancestry, a family history of three generations closely associated with Indian missionary endeavors, his own education for the ministry, and his present status as a law student, he must be considered a bona fide modern Indian and an experienced, informed activist in Indian organizational work. Deloria's is truly an Indian book. There are a few Indians who write professionally on Indian subjects as novelists or anthropologists, but Deloria represents a type of Indian, fairly often encountered, who threatens "to write a book" but never does. Deloria has. If nothing else, he should shake a patronizing public, self-righteous benefactors, and preciously scientific scholars into a realization that the day is past when we can talk or write as if Indians were either illiterate or extinct, no matter how benevolent or objective our intentions.

Whereas many Indians will disagree with Deloria on some of the specific points, broad generalizations, and recommendations, they can agree on the basic premise of the manifesto, whether they are vocal promulgators or supportive of it by simply being Indians: the tribals shall inherit the earth. (p. 80)

Perhaps all that Deloria is asking of the anthropologists, as well as of the missionaries, the government and other "friends" is that, if they cannot agree absolutely that the tribals actually will inherit the earth, they will agree to help Indians get a chance to try to inherit something either as a matter of humanitarian concern for their birthright or from the perspective that we are foolish to pass up anything that might be a good idea, things on earth being what they presently are. (p. 81)