Winona LaDuke Biography

Winona LaDuke is one of the most famous Native Americans in progressive politics, having twice been a candidate for the office of U.S. vice president as a member of the Green Party.

Raised in Ashland, Oregon and a graduate of Harvard University (Economics, 1981), LaDuke began her activism in earnest while a college student — she took a break while at Harvard to go protest in Nevada against uranium mining and nuclear testing on Native land.

Her public speaking skills also launched her career while in college, and when she was only 18 she traveled to Geneva to address members of the United Nations.

Since then, LaDuke has written, lectured, taught, protested and organized.

LaDuke founded the Indigenous Women’s Network in 1985 to encourage involvment amont Native women; she founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project (WELRP) in Minnesota in 1989 to reclaim land and revive wild rice farming; and she co-founded Honor the Earth in 1993 (with Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, the recording duet Indigo Girls) to address indigenous economics reform.

In 1996 and 2000, LaDuke ran for Vice President of the United States on the Green Party ticket, headed by presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

Most recently, LaDuke has been a leading voice in the fight against pipeline construction near her home in Minnesota in the White Earth Reservation.

LaDuke’s many books include All Our Relations (1999), Recovering the Sacred (2005), The Militarization of Indian Country (2011) and the novel Last Standing Woman (1997).