When Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb presented the 2024 Civil Rights Humanitarian Award to Sally Tuttle in January 2024, it was fitting acknowledgement for the longtime Kokomo, Indiana, resident and her many decades of community service. As a member of The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Sally has long worked to promote and protect Native American culture and history. The civil rights award, presented during the state’s official Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebrations in Indianapolis, expressly recognizes individuals who address poverty, economic disenfranchisement and social injustice.

Born in Oklahoma, Tuttle went to that state’s Chilocco Indian School, attended Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, and then joined family living in Sacramento, California. There she met and married David Tuttle from Galveston, Indiana, who was serving in the United States Air Force. Making their home back in Kokomo, David spent a career with the Chrysler Corporation and he and Sally raised two children. Over the years, Sally and David became vintage car enthusiasts and longtime participants in the annual Haynes-Apperson Festival. Since David’s death in 2020, Sally has continued to support the area auto activities and remains a familiar face at community events. But her vision extended beyond Kokomo’s city limits and out to the many Native Americans who live In the Hoosier State long after the tribal governments were removed in the 1800s. “I couldn’t understand the state named Indiana after the land of Indians and there was such a blank history of Native American Indians. It was all pre-removal,” Sally told the Kokomo Tribune in 2022. “We have a long tradition. We have a different way of life, but we are all part of the community of the state of Indiana.”

Sally has consistently turned advocacy into results. She created or has consulted with several nonprofit organizations throughout Indiana focusing on Native American healthcare and housing issues, as well as Indian veterans’ benefits, and especially working to correct the use of racial caricatures for school mascots. Sally remains committed to helping with statewide Native issues. She currently serves as vice- chair of the Indiana Native American Indian Affairs Commission. Most recently she has been working with the Kokomo Native Initiative, a collective committee including the City of Kokomo and local history organizations that promotes Native culture and creates educational programs. The “Drums Along the Wildcat” public gathering each September in Kokomo is one of its signature events.

“My goal is to make sure that the Native community of the state of Indiana is projected in a positive, correct vision of who we are today,” Sally told the Tribune in 2022. She is a steadfast and adamant voice for the many communities she serves, but her Indian heritage is always first and foremost. She proudly affirmed that point while accepting the 2024 Humanitarian Award at the ceremony in Indianapolis: “I will never give up in making sure Native American Indian people have a voice within the land of Indians called Indiana.”