Waubonsee Community College

Thunderbird woman, Winona LaDuke, by Bertram Verhaag and Claus Biegert

eng

videorecording

For College; Adult audiences

Thunderbird woman

electronic resource

747799111

by Bertram Verhaag and Claus Biegert

60

Winona LaDuke

This is an inspiring portrait of Winona La Duke, a unique and dynamic activist and member of the Anishinaabe tribe from the White Earth reservation in Northern Minnesota. Her father was a Native American who worked as a stuntman in Hollywood; her mother was a Jewish artist from New York. After completing her studies in economics at Harvard, Winona settled on the reservation. She traveled widely raising money to buy back land originally owned by Native Americans. In the film, we meet Native American activists Ralph Bear Killer and Alex White Plume who describe how the U.S. government in the late 19th century had defrauded the Native Americans of so much of their land, while suppressing their language and culture. The government had also slaughtered millions of buffalo upon which their agriculture depended. This destruction of the ecosystem is still being felt today. Winona organized resistance against uranium and coal mining on reservation lands. Nicknamed "No Nukes la Duke," in the 1980s she used the slogan "No Nukes" to united the Indian Movement with anti-nuclear protests. A published author, she was named one of America s fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age by Time Magazine. And, this impressive woman was chosen by Ralph Nader to be his running mate on the Green Party ticket in the 1996 and 2000 elections!

general