c-span3, saturday night at 9:00, brooklyn college professor tells elle leading to the american revolution, taverns in new york city were used as central meeting place a to talk about british policies and foster a patriotic spirit. sunday at 6:00 on american artifacts, u.s. house historians use articles from their collections to tell the story of house pages. find our complete television schedule at www.c-span.org and let us know what you think. , e-mail us, or send us a tweet. ,oined the c-span conversation like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. year, c-span is touring cities across the country. our recent visit to madison, wisconsin. you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span three. today, where on the campus of the university of wisconsin madison in front of the lake where 100 years a go last month in 1914, the society of american indians met at their fourth annual meeting .>> six days the society of american indians was the first secular indian led , indian rights association that sought to impact congressional policy and help out indian people on reservations .after it was made up mostly of american indian professional people .the fall of the berlin indian of the bureau of affairs, 52 of them gathered to gather in wisconsin to set the agenda for the future and attempts to shape congressional policy. what was happening at the time for the american indian people was the reservation system was appearing to be a failure to many different interested parties. indian people were poor, undereducated, they have been losing vast quantities of lands, their tribal economies were in bad shape and it was time -- the feeling was that it was a time for a change in indian policy. the specific items on their agenda were to get citizenship for indian people. indian people would become citizens in 1924. in 1914, they were wards of the u.s. government come and not citizens of the united states government. wasother thing they wanted by 1914, there was a good 100 year backlog of complaints that indian people had about failure of the treaty relationship. indian people want to the court of claims open to them so that they could litigate their claims against the united states government. they would assemble what they called a memorial and actually present it to the president of the united states, woodrow wilson at the time, in december of 1914. woodrow wilson did not have indians high and his political agenda though he indicated he would take the matter very seriously. until 1924, 10 years after this meeting, that indian people would finally get citizenship. the people who came and formed the society of american indians and the people who came to this particular meeting where really the first generation of rather prominent indian national figures. perhaps the most common of them all was henry rowcloud who was the first indian graduate of he wrote a critique of federal indian policy in 1928 that would have a big impact in the roosevelt administration and was really the scholarship behind the indian new deal. another one was laura cornelius who was an activist from the oneida people in wisconsin and another was denison wheelock, a lawyer and activist working on behalf of indian rights. carlos montezuma was a member of the society of american indians and author, a physician and so was charles eastman who is also an author and have written a number of books. it was also a physician. all of these people had tribal affiliations. when you read the minutes of this meeting, you can see this kind of characteristic intertribal teasing that goes on between indian people. they were identified with their tribes but they were also working out this idea of the unique contribution of the indian race as they put it. in 1909, the naacp have been formed. with the society for american indians coming in in 1911, we get a sense of certain conceptual continuities especially with the idea of race. factionalizeduld over two issues in the course of the late teens and early 20's. one was the role that the bureau of indian affairs could have and the society of american indians. there were several people who were employees of the bureau of indian affairs and there were other people within the society who did not act the bureau had a place in the society. they also factionalized arbor the issue of peyote, the native american church. this had been a movement that was groaning, a pan indian religious movement and the society debated this and was on both sides of the issue. ultimately, in the 1920's, the society would dissipate over these kinds of issues of conflict so that by 1923, they had their last meeting in chicago. the society would lead to the formation of the national council of american indians and subsequently, the national congress of american indians which still operates today. to giveit's important recognition of the 100th anniversary of the fourth annual conference of the society of american indians that took place here on the campus of the university of wisconsin, madison. because it seems that this conference at the time started a relationship between the university and the tribes of wisconsin. shortly after this conference, the university began to reach out to the american indian community in the state of wisconsin sending its researchers, sending other personnel and we get the beginnings of a research relationship. i think it's time we look back on that 100 year history and look forward to the next 100 years of the relationship. >> throughout the weekend, american history tv is featuring madison, wisconsin. our cities doorstep traveled there to learn about its rich history. learn more about madison and other stops on c-span's cities tour at www.c-span.org/local content. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> this thanksgiving week, c-span is featuring interviews from retiring members of congress. watch the interviews monday through thursday at 8:00 p.m. eastern. >> everything has become so that to, well, tell some of the people involved in togress back in the 1830's 1860's like henry clay or stephen a douglas. these people were struggling desperately to try to work out compromises to keep the union afloat and avoided splitting up. >> i think we have a lot of talented younger members. it's not just, by the way, mrs. pelosi. i think she has been a great leader and she is really good at raising money. that's not one of my fortes. i was never good at that. they have to start training younger people and bringing younger people into the caucus. to become hopefully the future leaders. that ithe things certainly believe with all my heart and soul is you have to know when to leave. >> also on thursday, thanksgiving day, we will take in american history tour of various native american tribes at 10:00 a.m. eastern following "washington journal." at 1:30 p.m., 10 the groundbreaking ceremony of the diplomacce