That requires different kinds of action, different kinds of organization, different kinds of political pressure operating over different timescales.

Parker’s life demonstrated that a Seneca man could stand in the most consequential room in America on one of the most consequential days in American history.

It demonstrated that a Native person could hold federal executive authority over the affairs of Native people.

What it could not demonstrate was that these demonstrations were sufficient — that the act of achieving them changed the conditions under which the next generation of Native Americans would live their lives.

The next generation would have to demonstrate that again, in new contexts, against persistent resistance.