Washington ( CNN ) -- Remembering Wilma Mankiller , who died this week , is n't hard , because first of all , who can forget a name like that ? Wilma Pearl Mankiller . What a perfect name . Perfect , that is , after you 've won two terms as leader of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and a Presidential Medal of Freedom , traveled the world , acquired celebrity friends like Gloria Steinem and become one of the most famous American Indians on the planet . Not so perfect in 1969 , when you 're 25 years old and a soon-to-be-divorced mother of two living in San Francisco . Try making a dentist appointment with a name like Mankiller or Crow Dog or Pretty Shield : half the time people would think it 's a crank call and hang up on you . But that was the least of her problems . Wilma Mankiller 's biggest problem was being an Indian in 1969 . We were so square , and so invisible . Why was she in San Francisco then , instead of Oklahoma ? She had moved there with her family ( she was one of 11 children ) because the United States said there was n't any future in Indians living on reservations . So it began a program imaginatively called Urban Indian Relocation , which moved Indians to cities . It was n't a terrible idea , just a bad one , at least for most Indians . Was life better in Cleveland or Dallas or San Francisco than life in Mescalero , Tahlequah , or Wanblee ? Sometimes yes , usually no . The thing is , it was n't clear where any of this was going . What was even the point of being Indian , anyway ? Why ca n't there be a future back home ? Why is being an unemployed aerospace worker in California better than being unemployed in Montana ? Mankiller may have been pondering these questions when something amazing happened . In a daring nighttime invasion , a few dozen Indian college students took over the abandoned federal prison on Alcatraz Island and reclaimed it on behalf of a group they had just invented , called Indians of All Tribes . This was electrifying because Indians in those days did not stage daring nighttime invasions and break laws and trespass on federal property -- any property , for that matter . That occupation of Alcatraz in November 1969 lasted for 19 months . Mankiller visited the ragtag settlement frequently , and said it changed her life . She was n't the only one . I moved to San Francisco in 1977 , and met Mankiller and other `` veterans '' of Alcatraz . The occupation was endlessly debated -- so many good and bad things happened during those months -- but nobody argued how important it was , and how much had changed . We were n't so boring , and we were becoming visible . More than anything else , Alcatraz signaled new possibilities . Wilma Mankiller saw them clearly and seized every one . She finished college , divorced , moved with her two daughters back to Oklahoma , and began her own series of audacious takeovers : running and revolutionizing community development projects for the tribe , then successfully running for principal chief of the Cherokee Nation . She served two terms and became an icon . Just like Alcatraz , none of this was supposed to happen . Did I mention she was a woman ? We Indians in the U.S. talk a good game about being matriarchal and so forth , but it was no accident that in the 20th century no woman had lead a major tribe before her . ( The unofficial logo of the American Indian Movement was the Playboy bunny . Ha ha ! ) So she had no chance to lead her Nation , but did so anyway . The other reason none of this was suppose to happen is her near-fatal car crash in 1979 , her kidney transplant , her battles with breast cancer , lymphoma , and numerous operations . She beat them all -- all except pancreatic cancer . The health disasters were horrible and unrelenting , but I bet you dollars to donuts Mankiller would tell you it was n't nearly as bad as the tribal politics . Alcatraz feels like a million years ago . We have profitable Indian casinos and a Smithsonian museum and many strong women leading our tribes and communities . Indian college students are getting Ph.D. 's instead of criminal records . Some people , including me , wonder if we 've lost the kind of daring that would lead college kids to break into an abandoned prison seeking some kind of justice , and a woman to find a calling there that would change a piece of the world . And this is where I write she was tough as nails and one of a kind , and we wo n't see the likes of her ever again . It 's all true , but there 's something more . Her life made a new future possible one that is still unwritten . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul Chaat Smith .
Wilma Mankiller says Paul Chaat Smith was one of the most accomplished , famous American . She was inspired by the the Cherokee Nation occupation in 1979 to become politically involved . He says she endured health disasters , other challenges and persevered . Smith : Her life made a new future possible .