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A Native American activist, Harvard-educated economist and author, Winona LaDuke has devoted her life to advocating for indigenous people’s rights; environmental justice; women's and children's rights; rural development, economic, food, and energy sovereignty.

The Convocation presentation is called Creating a Multicultural Democracy - Religion, Culture, and Identity in America! 

In 1985, LaDuke co-founded and co-chaired the Indigenous Women’s Network (IWN), a coalition dedicated to empowering women to take active roles in tribal politics and culture. In 1989, she founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project (WELRP), a reservation-based land acquisition, environmental advocacy, and cultural organization and one of the largest reservation-based nonprofits in the country. She is a former board member of Greenpeace USA. In 1993, she collaborated with the Indigo Girls to co-found Honor the Earth, an advocacy group working on behalf of Native environmental groups.

In 1994, LaDuke was nominated by Time Magazine as one of America’s 50 most promising leaders under the age of 40. She was awarded The Thomas Merton Award in 1996, The Biha Community Service Award in n 1997, The Ann Bancroft Award for Women’s Leadership Fellowship, and The Reebok Human Rights Award (which she used to begin the White Earth Land Recovery Project). LaDuke was a two-time Green Party running mate for Ralph Nader in 1996 and 2000, and she is an international thought leader and lecturer in climate justice, renewable energy and environmental justice, plus an advocate for protecting Indigenous plants and heritage foods from patenting and genetic engineering.

In 1998, Ms. Magazine named her one of their Women of the Year. In 2021, LaDuke was named to the first Forbes list of “50 Over 50 Women of Impact” in partnership with Mika Brzezinski’s “Know Your Value,” a program dedicated to shining a light on women over the age of 50 who have achieved significant success later in life, often overcoming formidable odds or barriers. She was a leader at the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests that sought to protect water access and sacred Indigenous lands in North Dakota, and her work inspired the 2017 documentary First Daughter and the Black Snake. In 2017, LaDuke also won the University of California’s Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy and Tolerance.

LaDuke has published six acclaimed nonfiction titles, including: The Militarization of Indian Country; Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming; All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life; The Winona LaDuke Chronicles: Stories from the Front Lines in the Battle for Environmental Justice; The Winona LaDuke Reader: A Collection of Essential Writings; and most recently, To Be a Water Protector: Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers—a book that deals with her activism battling Line 3, an Enbridge tar sands oil pipeline in northern Minnesota. She is also the author of one novel, Last Standing Woman.

Today, Winona LaDuke lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and she is active with multiple organizations, including the Anishinaabe Agriculture Institute, Akiing. Her latest effort is Winona’s Hemp and Heritage, a farm and nonprofit agency whose mission is to create an Indigenous women-led economy that is kind to the Earth.

This convocation is also presented as a virtual webinar. Please register in advance if you would like to attend via Zoom. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

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