Winona LaDuke was born in Los Angeles, California, to a Jewish mother and an Ojibwe father from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. From a young age, she was fascinated by her father’s powwows and tribal culture and traditions. At 5, her parents divorced, and LaDuke moved with her mother to Ashland, Oregon. After high school, she attended Harvard University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1982. During school, she joined a group of Indigenous activists and assisted the civil rights activist Jimmie Durham in his research on the effects of uranium mining in Navajo reservations. After graduating, LaDuke moved to White Earth to work as the reservation high school’s principal. Soon, she became involved with the Anishinaabeg’s lawsuit to reclaim lands promised to them in a federal treaty in 1867. Initially, the reservation spanned 837,000 acres, but due to government policies allowing lumber companies and non-Native groups to seize the land, more than 90 percent were taken away by 1934. In 1985, at 26, LaDuke founded the Indigenous Women’s Network – a collective of 400 Native women activists and organizations committed to enhancing the representation of Native women, empowering them to participate in tribal politics and cultural endeavors actively. She also worked with Women of All Red Nations to raise awareness of the forced sterilization of Native American women. In 1989, LaDuke received her master’s in community economic development from Antioch University. That same year, LaDuke founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project (WELRP), a non-profit organization that works on buying back reservation lands. By 2000, WELRP bought 1,200 acres, preserving them in a conservation trust for future transfer to the tribe’s possession. Focusing on sustainable development, WELRP has supported many initiatives, including indigenous farming, local food systems, local wild rice crop protection from patenting and genetic engineering, renewable energy, sanitation improvement, and a diaper service that reduces waste from disposable diapers while saving money. In the early 1990s, LaDuke joined forces with the musical due Indigo Girls to arrange a series of concerts to raise awareness of Native issues. In 1993, they founded together Honor the Earth, a non-profit organization promoting financial support for Indigenous environmental justice. In 1996 and 2000, LaDuke delved deeper into politics when serving as Ralph Nader’s running mate on the Green Party presidential ticket. She also was involved with the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests and led the protests against the Line 3 pipeline of 2020-2021. LaDuke is a strong advocate for the cultivation of marijuana and industrial hemp on Indigenous tribal lands to generate economic benefits and foster local economic self-reliance. Since 2017, she has devoted most of her time to farming and established Winona’s Hemp & Heritage Farm to create an economy led by Indigenous women that focuses on local food, energy, and fiber while prioritizing environmental sustainability. Read more...

Born in Saybrook, Connecticut. From an early age Sanford knew she meant to be an educator, and by the age of 16, she had already taught at the local day schools. At 31 she moved to Pennsylvania, where she was appointed as a principal and campaigned for county superintendent, but lost to a male opponent. Two years later, Sanford got hired as a history professor at Swarthmore College and became one of the first female professors in the US. When she was 44 years old, Sanford accepted a tenure at the University of Minnesota, where she taught rhetoric, elocution, literature, and art history for nearly thirty years. Sanford was not a regular educator, she was known for her innovative teaching approach and for her belief that the teacher’s role is to instill moral as well as aesthetic values. She also conducted teachers meeting to demonstrate new teaching methods and founded parent-teacher organizations. Maria Sanford had a close relationship with her students, offering them advice and support, and hosting student social events. In addition to being a university professor, Sanford gave public speeches, advocated for multiple causes, such as women’s right, education of blacks, adult education, healthcare, and environmental preservation. After her retirement, Sanford continued giving lectures about art and history, but also about social and political issues, and during WW1 she traveled the country and delivered patriotic speeches. She established the Minneapolis Improvement League and served as a head director for Northwestern Hospital. At the State celebration after the 19th amendment ratification, Sanford was one of the main speakers. Read more...