Winona LaDuke

To many people Winona LaDuke will need no introduction.  Her work, her scholarship, her political activism are recognized nationally and internationally – yet she is very much a cherished daughter of Northwest Minnesota.  Born on the West Coast of Jewish and Native American parents, Winona embraced early on the tradition of her father’s Native American heritage, and it was to the land of her father, White Earth Reservation, that Winona returned after her graduation from Harvard University. Here she would raise her family; in the traditional ways of her people.   She immediately became active in land rights issues and soon would found the White Earth Land Recovery Project.  Her attention also turned to the wild rice economy of the reservation.  She spearheaded the formation of Native Harvest, under the auspices of the Land Recovery Project, to shore up local traditional harvesting and marketing of wild rice.   In 2003 the work of the co-op received international acclaim with the International Slow Food Award for protecting traditional harvest wild rice and local biodiversity.  Winona’s roots reach deep into the land she defends. She is a woman warrior for her people.  She is a woman warrior for all people.  She is a woman warrior for the earth.

Winona first came to the attention of renowned photo-journalist, Dick Bancroft when she was a wisp of a girl – around age 17 or 18 – at that time an undergraduate at Harvard University in rural economic development.  This very young girl was addressing the United Nations in Washington on indigenous and environmental issues.  Bancroft calls her ‘a woman in motion’…then and now, ‘a woman with a mission’.  Truthfully, Winona has been and is a woman with many missions: land recovery, wild rice agriculture, alternative energy, nuclear ban, environmental justice, public awareness and education on ecological balance and stewardship of this place we call home – Mother Earth.  Her message is simple:  as human beings we need to rethink our place – rethink our relationship with that which sustains us and all that is around us.

Winona LaDuke’s contributions are substantial. She is a prolific writer with five published books and numerous articles.  She has appeared in documentaries and movies depicting Native American issues.  She is Program Director of Honor the Earth Fund that supports proactive work, and founding director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project.  She is also Co-Chair of the Women’s Indigenous Environmental Network and she has served in the past on the board of directors of Greenpeace USA. Winona has twice been the ‘no nukes Laduke’ running mate of Green Party Ralph Nader in national elections.

Going back to 1988, only a few short years after graduating from university, Winona received the Reebok Human Rights Award with which she started the White Earth Land Recovery Project.  In 1994, she was nominated by Time Magazine as one of America’s 50 ‘most promising’ young leaders.  Several awards followed: the Thomas Merton Award, the Ann Bancroft Award for Women’s Leadership, the BIHA (Black Indian Hispanic Asian) Community Service Award, and the Global Green Award.  In 1997 she was named Woman of the Year by MS Magazine and only ten years later was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, NY.  The many prestigious awards that have been bestowed on Winona LaDuke for leadership, human rights, social justice and environmental activism are ample testimony of the esteem in which her knowledge, dedication and work are held.   She is indeed of great value to our country, to our state and to our regional communities.

A passage from her book, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life (1999:200) is an eloquent example of her powerful message:           

The choice between the technological and the spiritual will be based on both individual and collective decisions, both simple and complex.  For just as life itself is a complex web of relationships and organisms, so is the fabric of a community and a culture that chooses its future.  Either way, according to Indigenous worldviews, there is no easy fix, no technological miracle. […] There is, in many indigenous teachings a great optimism for the potential to make positive change. Change will come. As always, it is just a matter of who determines what that change will be.

Winona LaDuke was inducted into the NW Minnesota Women’s Hall of Fame in March 2008 as a tribute to her extensive contributions to the region in areas of environmental stewardship, climate change education and awareness, traditional economy market growth and capacity building, biodiversity, and sustainable energy sources.   Bemidji State University is truly honored to have her give the 2008 Student Scholarship and Creative Achievement Day Keynote Address.

                                                          Carla Norris-Raynbird, Ph.D.
                                                          Sociology
                                                          Bemidji State University