![]() I was in protective mode right away,” Thunder Hawk says. It no doubt set the stage for her life’s path as an activist. She survived boarding school, as did her mother. After that they wrapped our heads in towels. “They took us to the basement where they had big tubs of kerosene. “They assumed we had head lice,” she recalls. In 1946, she and her sister were sent to a BIA boarding school, where they were given government issued clothing. Thunder Hawk knows intimately how frightening it can be for children who are removed from their homes. Since the law’s enactment, the number of Native children placed in non-Native homes fell to 56 percent of those removed from their families. According to the National Indian Child Welfare Association, when the I ndian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) became law in 1978, 25 to 35 percent of all Native American children were being taken from their homes, and 85% of them were placed outside their communities. Specifically, she’s standing strong for those who are forced into foster care. Statistics show Native Americans are up to four times more likely to have their children separated and placed into foster care than their non-Native counterparts. I ended up staying through to the end.”Īs a mother, grandmother and now great grandmother, Thunder Hawk has been very vocal when it comes to Native children: “I’m part of a Grandmother’s group called Wasagiya Najin (“standing strong”). We know their tactics, any level of government. “We dealt directly with the Morton County Sheriff’s office and the Army Corp of Engineers. Thunder Hawk responded to a call from an AIM cohort to help manage an encampment that captured international attention: “My work was with Phyllis Young, who served as the liaison for the (Standing Rock Sioux) tribe,” Thunder Hawk continues. Indigenous youth and Indigenous adult women played a pivotal role in the movement. “ Water is life” or “ Mni Wiconi” (in Lakota) became the rallying cry against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). No wonder Thunder Hawk joined the tens of thousands of protestors or “water protectors” in 2016 on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South Dakota who gathered to combat construction of the nearly 1,200 mile long oil pipeline controlled by Energy Transfer Partners. There’s land base issues and water issues,” Thunder Hawk says.ĭefending land and water protected by treaties are a no brainer for the outspoken advocate. She currently works as a tribal liaison for the Lakota People’s Law Project, which “partners with Native communities to protect sacred lands, safeguard human rights, promote sustainability, reunite indigenous families, and much more.” “Your work changes as you age. She helped to establish a Survivor School, an alternative to government run schools, where culturally relevant teachings about topics like tribal sovereignty were the norm. She also co-founded the Black Hills Alliance to fight uranium mining on sacred Lakota land. She doesn’t like the word activist saying “it’s overused.” She co-founded Women of all Red Nations (WARN), which focused on Native women’s issues. You never looked back.”Īs she moved forward, her work as a frontline protestor and reformer evolved. We were always looking forward, like our ancestors. We would come up against more things, and there’s always stuff to do. It’s, what’s the next struggle? We had no time to think about it. We never did sit down to look at what we did. ![]() ![]() Thunder Hawk says at the time she didn’t think about the significance of what was political activism: In 1973 she was at the takeover of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, an occupation involving 200 people and lasting 71 days, with activists standing up for treaty rights and injustices against Native Americans. An early leader in the American Indian Movement (AIM), Thunder Hawk took part in the occupation at Alcatraz, one of the most important events in Native American history and the first modern protest led primarily by Indigenous people, 400 of them, who stood up for Indian self-determination. It was her actions starting in 1969 that proved louder than words. Her name, afterall, is synonymous with the American Indian Civil Rights Movement and in general, Native American resistance. She may be from the Silent Generation (pre Baby Boomers) but those who know Madonna Thunder Hawk, 81, Lakota from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, also know she’s definitely not the silent type. “First of all, you don’t need anyone’s permission t o stand up for something, no matter what it is.” – Madonna Thunder Hawk
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