Celebrating Native American Heritage
Celebrating American Indian and Alaska Native Women who helped shape our world.
March is Women’s History Month
Story Borrowed from U.S. Department of the Interior Indian Affairs
Photos uploaded from google search
Mathilda “Tillie” Black Bear (1946-2014)
Rosebud (Sicanju) Sioux; women’s health and safety advocate. A victim herself of domestic abuse and considered by many to be the mother and grandmother of the battered Native women’s movement, she is credited with being the first to bring national attention to the issue of abuse committed against American Indian women when she testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ hearing on battered women in 1978. She founded the first battered women’s shelter in the Lower 48 states – the White Buffalo Calf Woman Society on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota – and the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center. Her advocacy for protecting Native women from abuse led to many positive results such as including tribes in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Among the honors she received for her work was the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award by President Clinton in 2000.
Denise Juneau (b. 1967)Denise JuneuMandan-Hidatsa (enrolled)/Blackfeet/Tlingit and Haida; advocate, lawyer, educator, government official. Raised on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana where she graduated from Browning Public High School in 1985, Juneau went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in English from Montana State University (1993) and a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education (1994). She later graduated from the University of Montana Law School (2004). Her years of working in education and the law in Montana led to her seeking the post of Superintendent for Public Instruction, which she campaigned for and won in 2008 making her the first American Indian woman elected to statewide office in Montana. In 2018, she was elected by the Seattle Public Schools board to become superintendent of the city’s public school system. Her commitment to education and students has been recognized by the National Indian Education Association (Educator of the Year 2009) and the Harvard Graduate School of Education with its Alumni Council Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education (2015), among other honors.
Dr. Susan La Fleche Picotti (1865-1915)
Omaha; teacher, doctor, advocate. Born on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska and attending school there, La Fleche eventually left for a school for young women in New Jersey, returning home at 17 to teach at the reservation’s Quaker mission school. The denial of health care to an American Indian woman by a white male doctor that she witnessed in her youth inspired La Fleche to finish her education and obtain a medical degree. With scholarship funds from the U.S. Indian Affairs Office (BIA) and the Connecticut Indian Association of the Women’s National Indian Association, she attended the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania where she graduated in 1889, thus making her the first American Indian woman in the United States to receive a medical degree. After completing a year-long internship, she again returned home to provide health care to her people. In 1906, she travelled to Washington, D.C., to press for prohibiting alcohol on the Omaha Reservation, where in 1913 she opened a hospital.
Mary Golda Ross (1908-2008)
Mary Golda Ross Cherokee; teacher, mathematician, aerospace engineer. A direct descendent of Cherokee Chief John Ross and one of America’s first female American Indian engineers, she worked on developing launch and orbiting requirements for NASA’s Agena spacecraft used in its Gemini and Apollo programs of the 1960s. Prior to that time, with a degree in mathematics from Oklahoma’s Northeastern State Teacher’s College, she taught in state schools, later working for the BIA as a statistician and the Institute of American Indian Arts as a student advisor. In retirement, she encouraged young people, especially American Indians, to work in technology. In 2019, the U.S. Mint issued a $1 coin and $1 Series 2017 bank note to recognize and honor her.
Annie Dodge Wauneka (1910-1997)
Navajo (Diné); health care advocate, educator, government leader. A BIA boarding school student who survived the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19, she witnessed how important health care was to her fellow students and family. After her marriage, she went on to pursue her education in the field of public health and brought that knowledge to the Navajo people. Eventually, she sought a seat on the tribal council where she could further her goal of improving health care on the Navajo Reservation, especially in combatting tuberculosis. In 1951, she became the Nation’s first female tribal council member, eventually serving three terms, which gave her the platform she needed for her public health advocacy. In the 1950s, she earned a bachelor’s degree in public health from the University of Arizona, which in 1976 awarded her an honorary doctorate in public health. She served on advisory boards to the U.S. Public Health Service and the U.S. Surgeon General. Among the many honors she received for her work, which included developing an English-Navajo dictionary for translating medical terms and techniques, was the Presidential Medal of Freedom given to her by President Johnson in 1963.