Babson Hosts Environmentalist/Indigenous Rights Activist October 20
Winona LaDuke, Founder of White Earth Land Recovery Project
Environmentalist and Indigenous Rights Activist Winona LaDuke will speak at Babson on Tuesday, October 20th at 7 p.m. in Sorenson Theater. It is free and open to the public.
Hosted by the History and Society Division with support from the Sorenson Center for the Arts and the Green Tower, LaDuke will speak on ethics and justice, citizenship and social responsibility, addressing themes Babson students in history and society courses are studying.
Winona LaDuke is Anishinabe from the Makwa Dodaem (Bear Clan) of the Mississippi Band of the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota. LaDuke became involved in Native American environmental issues while she was attending Harvard University.
LaDuke has won countless awards for her advocacy and writing on native environmental issues. She is founding director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, a reservation-based land acquisition, environmental advocacy, and cultural organization. She also founded Native Harvest, which hosts an online catalog of native products.
At the age of 18, she spoke in front of the United Nations regarding Indian issues and since has become known as a voice for American Indian economic and environmental concerns throughout the U.S. and internationally. She was the recipient of the 1989 International Reebok Human Rights Award and in 1995 was named as one of the "50 leaders" for the future by Time Magazine.
A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, Winona has written extensively on Native American and Environmental issues. She is a former board member of Greenpeace USA and serves, as co-chair of the Indigenous Women's Network, a North American and Pacific indigenous women's organization. In 1998, Ms. Magazine named her Woman of the Year for her work with Honor the Earth. Winona's editorials and essays have also been published numerous times in national and international journals and newspapers.
She is the author of the novel Last Standing Woman (1997), a non-fiction book All our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life (1999), and Recovering the Sacred: the Power of Naming and Claiming (2005), a book about traditional beliefs and practices. Last Standing Woman is about the history of White Earth and the Anishinabe community beginning in the 1860's and continuing through seven generations. Within this time frame, three women have earned the name Ishkegaabawiikwe (Last Standing Woman). LaDuke writes the entire last chapter in the Ojibway language as a tribute to the Ojibway people and as evidence that the Ojibway language flourishes today.
LaDuke lives on the White Earth reservation and is working on a book concerning native environmentalism. She continues to be a spokesperson for the Chippewa people of Northern Minnesota, and active with the White Earth Land Recovery Project and the Indigenous Women's Network, which she founded. She also teaches courses on Native Environmentalism in many university settings.
