Activists
A Hunkpapa Lakota leader renowned for his role in the defeat of Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull unified tribes in a powerful stand against U.S. expansion.
Who is Sitting Bull?
A movement that advocates for the end of violence against Native women that draws attention to the high rates of disappearances and murders of Native people, particularly women and girls.
What is MMIW?
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Despite making up a small percentage of the U.S. population, Native women and girls continue to suffer abuse and assault at an alarming rate. The disappearance and murder of Native women and girls will continue as long as the complex jurisdictional system exists. There is evidence that the most common perpetrators of violence against Native American women are non-Native people. Federal policies and Supreme Court decisions have created a domino effect that allows perpetrators to evade punishment due to loopholes in the system. Additionally, negative stereotypes and a lack of media attention have played a role in the amount of violence that Native women and girls face. All of these aspects combined contribute to a lack of investigation and accountability. Unfortunately, this has been an issue in the United States for decades if not centuries. A solution would be to allow tribes to prosecute non-Natives who assault or murder Native Americans on reservations (Human Rights Research, 2024).
From the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she wrote Braiding Sweetgrass.
Who is Robin Wall Kimmerer?
Andrew Jackson can be credited for the Indian Removal Act which displaced members of the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to newly designated Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River.
What is Trail of Tears?
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Unsurprisingly, it was partly over gold being found on Cherokee land.
It displaced over 60,000 people.
Oklahoma actually translates to red people in Choctaw.
A Piegan Blackfeet and Nez Perce actress also of European descent who was the first Indigenous actress to be nominated for an Oscar. She won a Golden globe for her role in Killers of the Flower Moon.
Who is Lily Gladstone?
A Spokane artist and activist, confronted the use of Native American mascots and imagery in sports and popular culture, writes the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her protests at the University of Illinois sparked a national movement to challenge stereotypes and demand respect for indigenous identities.
Who is Charlene Teters?
True or False. Native women and girls experience DV at the lowest rate of any ethnicity in the United States.
What is false?
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More than 84% of native women and girls experience DV, and 96% of the perpetrators are non-native (NCAI).
An Ojibwe writer who wrote Firekeeper's Daughter.
Who is Angeline Boulley?
What type of school was created to "kill the Indian and spare the child"?
What are residential schools?
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Many Indigenous children were exposed to extreme abuse, had their haircut, and forced to speak English or French and convert to Christianity at these schools.
On January 16, 2025, "An investigation has detected 114 "unmarked burial features" on the former property of McIntosh Indian Residential School (IRS) in the Kenora district of northwestern Ontario, the Wiikwogaming Tiinahtiisiiwin Project Team said Thursday."
A Mohawk actress who plays Katara in Netflix's Avatar the Last Airbender.
Who is Kiawentiio Tarbell?
An Oglala Lakota chief who led a successful campaign against the U.S. Army in what became known as __'s War (1866–1868). His leadership forced the U.S. to abandon its forts along the Bozeman Trail.
Who is Red Cloud?
One European nation's citizens donated COVID-19 relief to the Dine (Navajo) and Hopi nations after returning the favor done to them by the Choctaw in 1847 after a forced famine.
What is Ireland?
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In 1847, when the Choctaws, who had only recently arrived over the ruinous “trail of tears and death” to what is now Oklahoma, took up a donation and collected over $5,000 (in today’s money) to support the Irish during the Potato Famine. The famine ravaged Ireland during the 1840s.
In 2020 the story took a new twist when a pandemic known as the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, caused disruptions around the world. The death toll was particularly acute in the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Reservation. The Irish, stating that they were “paying it forward” with their aid from the Choctaws in mind, took up a very sizeable donation with which to aid and assist the Navajo and Hopi (Choctaw Nation, n.d.)
From the Objibwe reservation, he wrote the historical narrative, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee.
Who is David Treuer?
What act's purpose is to protect the best interest of native children and to promote the stability and security of tribes and families by the establishment of minimum Federal standards for the removal of their children and placement of such children in homes which will reflect the unique values of their culture... (25 U.S. C. 1902).
What is ICWA?
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ICWA provides guidance to States regarding the handling of child abuse and neglect and adoption cases involving Native children and sets minimum standards for the handling of these cases.
ICWA protects Indigenous children from how the foster care system has been used in cultural genocide.
A Blackfoot, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Scottish actor who played in the Twilight Saga and Disney’s Descendants.
Who is Booboo Stewart?
A Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, who guided his people through the horrors of the Trail of Tears while fighting for their sovereignty.
Who is John Ross?
An area in which someone does not have access to a food source, such as a supermarket, nearby. Many Indigenous reservations were placed here and many nations were unpermitted to "be off the rez" as it was illegal for them to hunt off of the land given to them.
What is a food desert?
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Over a quarter of the United States Native American population experiences food insecurity. Food deserts are common among Tribal communities, and the health problems associated with limited access to healthy food are unable to be addressed by the lack of access to quality healthcare.
A Blackfoot writer who wrote The Only Good Indians.
Who is Stephan Graham Jones?
Born from rations of lard, flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar, this struggle food has now become a symbol of Indigenous resilience and is used in NDN/Dine (Navajo) tacos.
What is frybread?
A Thai-Chinese and Sioux actress who starred in "Prey" and "Reservation Dogs".
Who is Amber Midthunder?
A Bedonkohe Apache leader became legendary for his fierce resistance against the Mexican and U.S. militaries. Refusing to accept subjugation, he led a small band of followers through years of raids and escapes until eventual surrender in 1886 marked the end of major Native armed resistance in the Southwest.
Who is Geronimo?
A global Indigenous campaign to return stolen or federally controlled ancestral territories to Native nations.
What is Land Back?
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A common misconception over the movement is that it calls for the eviction of all non-Native individuals, but in reality it is about sovereignty, ecological revival, and justice. 99% of Indigenous land has been stolen since 1492.
A Black, Saginaw Anishinaabe writer who wrote An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States.
Who is Kyle T. Mays?
True or false. The US Constitution was entirely inspired by European philosophy (especially from John Locke) and actively tried to ignore Indigenous thought.
What is false.
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The Haudenosaunee Confederacy (exonym: Iroquois Confederacy) was a massive influence on the Constitution.
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The Senate recognized the influence of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy on the construction of the Constitution in a resolution read on September 16, 1987, that noted, “the original framers of the Constitution, including most notably, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, are known to have greatly admired the concepts, principles and governmental practices of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Whereas the confederation of the original Thirteen Colonies into one republic was explicitly modeled upon the Iroquois Confederacy as were many of the democratic principles which were incorporated into the Constitution itself (3-4).”"
A Six Nations Mohawk actor who played Tonto.
Who is Jay Silverheels/Harold Jay Smith?