Renowned Native American activist Madonna Thunder Hawk turned 86 today.
Thunder Hawk (Cheyenne River Sioux) has a long history of advocacy in her community, across Indian Country, and around the globe. She is a member and leader of the American Indian Rights Movement (AIM), co-founder of Women of All Red Nations and the Black Hills Alliance, a water protector, community organizer, a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.
She has spoken around the world as a delegate to the United Nations. She is the principal and Tribal liaison for the Lakota People’s Law Project. She was an International Indian Treaty Council delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
As an early member of AIM, Thunder Hawk had a role in the movements that ushered in the Self-Determination Era. She took part in the occupation of Alcatraz, two occupations of Mount Rushmore, and the occupation of Wounded Knee. In 1974, she co-founded Women of All Red Nations to galvanize support for issues affecting Native American women. In 1979, she helped establish the Black Hills Alliance, which worked to prevent dangerous mining and development on sacred land in the Black Hills.
In 2004, she was part of the formation of the Lakota People’s Law Project to advocate for federal enforcement of the Indian Child Welfare Act. She joined the movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. Today, she continues to serve as a co-founder of the Women Warrior Project, an organization that documents the stories of Indigenous women who have impacted Indian Country.
