While Native Americans now had citizenship, discrimination remained widespread. In some states their right to vote was denied, a situation not fully changed until the Civil rights movement of the 1960s. In 1926 she and her husband founded the National Council of American Indians, dedicated to the cause of uniting the tribes throughout the U.S. in the cause of gaining full citizenship rights through suffrage. From 1926 until she died in 1938, Zitkála-Šá would serve as president, major fundraiser, and speaker for the NCAI. Her early work was largely forgotten after the organization was revived in 1944 under male leadership.