Native American activist to speak at PSU

Winona LaDuke, a Native American Indian activist and environmentalist, will deliver the Pittsburg State University Profiles of Women in Government lecture at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 14, in the Governors Room of the Overman Student Center on the PSU campus. LaDuke’s lecture, "Native Women in Education, Leadership and Government," is free and open to the public.

Winona LaDuke (Ojibwe) is an internationally renowned Native American Indian activist and advocate for environmental, women's, and children's rights. She is the founder and campaign director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, a reservation-based land acquisition, environmental advocacy, and cultural organization. She is also founder and co-chairperson of the Indigenous Women's Network.

LaDuke organizes and hosts the annual "Honor the Earth" tour in conjunction with the folk-rock duo, the Indigo Girls, with whom she was named by Ms. magazine 1997 Woman of the Year. She joined Ralph Nader as his vice presidential running mate on the Green Party ticket in the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections.

In 1988, LaDuke won the Reebok Human Rights Award, launching the White Earth Land Recovery Project with the proceeds. In 1994 Time magazine named her one of the "50 For the Future," the country's most promising leaders under age 40. She has also been profiled in People, Sierra, E and Minnesota Monthly magazines.

LaDuke has written extensively on national environmental issues. She is the author of several books including: "All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life" (South End Press), the novel, "Last Standing Woman," (in which she chronicles a Native American reservation and its people's struggle to restore their culture), a non-fiction children's book, "In the Sugarbush," and "The Winona LaDuke Reader" (20-years of her writing, journalism, speeches, testimony, and poetry). South End Press released her latest book, "Recovering the Sacred," in late 2005.

LaDuke lives with her family on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota.

The Profiles of Women in Government Lecture Series is presented by Pittsburg State University and the PSU Foundation, Inc., through the generous support of the Helen S. Boylan Foundation.

For more information, please contact the Office of University Communication at 620-235-4122.

---Pitt State---