HOUGHTON -- Winona LaDuke, Native American environmental activist, will be featured at three coming events in Houghton and Baraga. She will be a guest speaker on Wednesday, Oct. 25, as part of the Social Justice Lecture Series, sponsored by Michigan Tech's Center for Diversity and Inclusion. The local Indigenous People's Day Campaign, a community group interested in indigenous peoples' rights, is co-sponsoring her visit and a feast to follow. Preceding her talk at Michigan Tech, she will be a guest speaker Oct. 25 at the Lunch and Learn Series Food Sovereignty Series at the Niiwin Akeaa Center, Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College, in Baraga.
This week, in order to acquaint the public with LaDuke's work, her documentary, First Daughter and the Black Snake, will be shown at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 18, in Fisher 135 on the Michigan Tech campus. The film showing is free and open to all. It can also be seen on YouTube for rent or purchase.*
Winona LaDuke, who comes from Ojibwa ancestry in Minnesota, is an American environmentalist, economist and writer, known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation as well as sustainable development. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for Vice President as the nominee of the Green Party of the United States, becoming the first Native American woman to receive an electoral vote for Vice President of the United States.
LaDuke is also the co-founder, with Indigo Girls Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, of Honor the Earth, a Native-led organization which addresses the two primary needs of the Native environmental movement: the need to break the geographic and political isolation of Native communities and the need to increase financial resources for organizing and change. Winona continues to function as the group's Executive Director of Honor.
Honor the Earth's Mission Statement, according to their Web site, is as follows: "Our mission is to create awareness and support for Native environmental issues and to develop needed financial and political resources for the survival of sustainable Native communities. Honor the Earth develops these resources by using music, the arts, the media, and Indigenous wisdom to ask people to recognize our joint dependency on the Earth and be a voice for those not heard."**
Honor the Earth is also a co-sponsor of LaDuke's talk at Michigan Tech, scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 25, in the MUB Ballroom.
LaDuke's Lunch and Learn talk in Baraga will focus on Food Sovereignty and the work of the Honor the Earth organization. It will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Niiwin Akeaa Center, Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College. Those wishing to have lunch at this event should RSVP to one of the following: Kit Laux (906) 524-8203 or klaux@kbocc.edu; DeAnna Hadden (906) 524-5757 ext. 22 or (906) 201-0361 or dhadden@kbic-nsn.gov; Valoree Gagnon (906) 201-0393 or vsgagnon@mtu.edu.
* Click here to learn how you can rent or buy the film First Daughter and the Black Snake on YouTube.
** Visit the Honor the Earth Web site to learn more about their work.
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