South Dakota was the first state in the nation's history to adopt the Initiative and Referendum, making it permissible for the people to initiate a constitutional amendment, on a statewide level in 1898. While it continues to be a controversial procedure, Patrick Garry discusses this in-depth while providing the only definitive reference resource on the South Dakota Constitution, including all significant court decisions interpreting each Section. The South Dakota Constitution features the rich history and development of constitutionalism in the state. It provides the complete text of the state's current constitution, with each section accompanied by commentary that explains the provision and traces its origins and its interpretation by the courts and by other governmental bodies. Offering in-depth, section-by-section analysis of the entire constitution, it shows the many significant changes within the state of South Dakota that have been made since the constitution's initial drafting. The book concludes with a bibliography, a table of cases cited in the volume, and a topical index making this volume a highly detailed historical companion for students, scholars, practitioners, and all readers interested in state constitutional issues and the history of South Dakota's statehood. The Oxford Commentaries on the State Constitutions of the United States is an important series that reflects a renewed international interest in constitutional history and provides expert insight into each of the 50 state constitutions. Each volume in this innovative series contains a historical overview of the state's constitutional development, a section-by-section analysis of its current constitution, and a comprehensive guide to further research. Under the expert editorship of Professor G. Alan Tarr, Director of the Center on State Constitutional Studies at Rutgers University, this series provides essential reference tools for understanding state constitutional law. Books in the series can be purchased individually or as part of a complete set, giving readers unmatched access to these important political documents.

Robert Hopkins was a man caught between two worlds. As a member of the Dakota Nation, he was unfairly imprisoned, accused of taking up arms against U.S. soldiers when war broke out with the Dakota in 1862. However, as a Christian convert who was also a preacher, Hopkins’s allegiance was often questioned by many of his fellow Dakota as well. Without a doubt, being a convert—and a favorite of the missionaries—had its privileges. Hopkins learned to read and write in an anglicized form of Dakota, and when facing legal allegations, he and several high-ranking missionaries wrote impassioned letters in his defense. Ultimately, he was among the 300-some Dakota spared from hanging by President Lincoln, imprisoned instead at Camp Kearney in Davenport, Iowa, for several years. His wife, Sarah, and their children, meanwhile, were forced onto the barren Crow Creek reservation in Dakota Territory with the rest of the Dakota women, children, and elderly. In both places, the Dakota were treated as novelties, displayed for curious residents like zoo animals. Historian Linda Clemmons examines the surviving letters from Robert and Sarah; other Dakota language sources; and letters from missionaries, newspaper accounts, and federal documents. She blends both the personal and the historical to complicate our understanding of the development of the Midwest, while also serving as a testament to the resilience of the Dakota and other indigenous peoples who have lived in this region from time immemorial.

In 1913, the State Normal School at Minot opened its temporary residence at the newly constructed Minot Armory with 11 faculty and 55 students. Site selection, reductions in funding, construction problems, litigation, and a tornado had delayed the opening of campus facilities. In 1914, the partially completed campus opened for classes. Hard economic times in the predominantly rural state delayed further construction until 1924, when the normal school received collegiate status and was renamed the State Teacher's College at Minot. Minot State University is located in the beautiful Mouse River valley on the drift prairie of North Dakota and has been inextricably linked to the landscape, community, and state of which it is a part. This volume commemorates its origin and dynamic evolution through World War II and serves as a centennial tribute to the faculty, staff, administration, and students that created this premier institution on the northern Great Plains.

Big money NCAA basketball had its origins in a many-sided conflict of visions and agendas. On one side stood large schools focused on a commercialized game that privileged wins and profits. Opposing them was a tenuous alliance of liberal arts colleges, historically black colleges, and regional state universities, and the competing interests of the NAIA, each with distinct interests of their own. Kurt Edward Kemper tells the dramatic story of the clashes that shook college basketball at mid-century—and how the repercussions continue to influence college sports to the present day. Taking readers inside the competing factions, he details why historically black colleges and regional schools came to embrace commercialization. As he shows, the NCAA's strategy of co-opting its opponents gave each group just enough just enough to play along—while the victory of the big-time athletics model handed the organization the power to seize control of college sports. An innovative history of an overlooked era, Before March Madness looks at how promises, power, and money laid the groundwork for an American sports institution.

The Sicangu (burnt thighs) received their name when some of the Lakota peoples' legs were burned in a great prairie fire. The French later named them Brule, and two large groups of the band would be settled on two reservations, Rosebud and Lower Brule in South Dakota. Author Donovin Sprague examines the history of the Rosebud Sioux through a collection of photographs and personal family interviews.