Internationally acclaimed author, orator, and activist Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabe) will speak at Fredonia on Dec. 2, addressing her audience on the topic of, “Love Water Not Oil: Native American Perspectives on the Keystone Pipeline.”
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The talk is at 6 p.m. at Rosch Recital Hall and will serve as the closing ceremony for Fredonia's month-long celebration of Native American History Month. The event is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be provided afterwards by the Native American Student Union. For questions about the event, please contact jennifer.hildebrand@fredonia.edu.
Dr. Derek Simon of St. Thomas University, describes Ms. LaDuke as someone uniquely talented at getting “people to feel good about opening up to constructive change.”
A graduate of Harvard and Antioch universities with advanced degrees in rural economic development, LaDuke has devoted her life to protecting the lands and life ways of Native communities, leading the Promised Land Public Radio Series has described her as “Outspoken, engaging, and unflaggingly dedicated to matters of ecological sustainability…”
LaDuke is founder and co-director of Honor the Earth, a national advocacy group encouraging public support and funding for native environmental groups. With Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on issues of climate change, renewable energy, sustainable development, food systems and environmental justice.
In her own community in northern Minnesota, she is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation based non-profit organizations in the country, and a leader on the issues of culturally-based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy and food systems. In this work, LaDuke also works to protect Indigenous plants and heritage foods from patenting and genetic engineering.
In 1994, Time magazine named her one of America’s 50 most promising leaders under 40 years of age, and in 1997 LaDuke was named Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year. Other honors include the Reebok Human Rights Award, the Thomas Merton Award, the Ann Bancroft Award, the Global Green Award and the prestigious International Slow Food Award for working to protect wild rice and local biodiversity. In 2007, LaDuke was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
LaDuke also served as Ralph Nader’s vice-presidential running mate on the Green Party ticket in the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections. In addition to numerous articles, LaDuke is the author of a number of non-fiction titles including, “All Our Relations, The Winona LaDuke Reader,” “Recovering the Sacred: the Power of Naming and Claiming,” “Food is Medicine: Recovering Traditional Foods to Heal the People,” and her latest, “The Militarization of Indian Country.” She has also penned a work of fiction, “Last Standing Woman,” and a children's book, “In the Sugarbush.”
This event is sponsored by the Ethnic Studies Speakers Series, Native American Student Union, Interdisciplinary Studies, the Western SUNY Native American Consortium, the Office of the President, the Sustainability Committee, the Graebner-Bennett History Department Cultural Fund, the Center for Multicultural Affairs, College Democrats, United Nations Fredonia, and the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. It is also a 2015-2016 Convocation Series event supported by the Office of the President and the Faculty Student Association.
