Nice News’ October 2024 Cause of the Month

Renowned folklorist Henry Glassie famously called history “a map of the past, drawn from a particular point of view, to be useful to the modern traveler.” And our latest Cause of the Month — the Warrior Women Project — is in pursuit of making that map more complete.

The nonprofit recovers and shares the stories of the women who fought for Indigenous self-determination and cultural survival during the Red Power Movement, which took place from the 1960s-1980s. Those stories are documented in oral histories, activist archives, community-accountable research, and media production, and made available to the public to help us all learn.

In 2018, Warrior Women Project released an award-winning documentary, Warrior Women, highlighting the story of Lakota activist Madonna Thunder Hawk and her daughter Marcy, who have been fighting for Indigenous rights for decades now (learn how to watch it here). More recently, the project curated an exhibit to honor the 50th anniversary of the occupation at Wounded Knee and the women who were involved.

“What I have learned during 25 years of being in collaboration with the narrators of the Red Power Movement is that the practice of ‘honoring’ is one way in which [Indigenous] communities archive their history on their own terms,” director and co-founder Beth Castle said in a blog post on the exhibit. “When we ‘honor’ we are creating and holding space for the past, present, and future to happen all together. We are recognizing and honoring how one person’s story is both vital and inherently intertwined in a larger ecosystem that also holds everyones’ story.”

One hundred percent of the proceeds from this fundraiser, held in honor of Indigenous Peoples Day on Oct. 14, will go directly to the Warrior Women Project. “Your support is essential in recovering these important lessons, reshaping our understanding of history, and challenging the inaccurate narratives that have persisted for far too long,” the project said in a statement shared with Nice News.

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Photo courtesy of Warrior Women Project