Conference

Keynote Address: Lakota Harden

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Abstract

Lakota Harden (Minnecoujou/Yankton Lakota and HoChunk) is an orator, activist, community organizer, workshop facilitator, radio host and poet. She has dedicated her life, as a daughter of seven generations of Lakota leaders, to liberation and justice. Harden’s activism over the years has included working with the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), Women of All Red Nations (WARN) and the Black Hills Alliance. She has collaborated with the Oakland-based Todos Alliance-Building Institute and the Oakland Men’s Project, and conducts trainings nationwide for adults who work with youth, across lines of gender, race and age to stop violence. As part of these projects, Harden conducts workshops on unlearning racism, sexism and other social oppressions. Taking this a step further, Harden specializes in “Decolonization” workshops for Indigenous peoples, addressing the impact of genocidal policies in our homes and communities.

Harden is currently a host on the weekly radio program Bay Native Circle on Pacifica radio station KPFA in the San Francisco Bay Area. The program features interviews, current events and perspectives of the Native American community. Harden is also a facilitator of post-screening discussions of the important feature film, “Follow Me Home,” a defiant, humorous, poetic movie that explores race and identity in America while embracing Native, Latino, and African spiritual dimensions.

Harden is recipient of the Brave Hearted Woman 2003 Award presented at the Mills College Brave Hearted Woman Conference and the 2004 Sisters of Fire Award presented by the Women of Color Resource Center to leading women-of-color activists and artists for their outstanding commitments to social justice.