Native American environmental activist gives public talk

On Thursday, Oct. 6, internationally acclaimed Native American environmental justice activist Winona LaDuke will give a public talk on “Religion, Faith and the Land from a Native Perspective” as part of the UW–Madison Multicultural Student Center’s  Institute for Justice Education and Transformation (IJET)’s programming theme “Faith or Justice?: Ironies, Inequalities and Ideologies.”

Free and open to the public, the lecture, co-sponsored with the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, will be from 7-9 p.m. in the Memorial Union Play Circle Theater.

LaDuke works nationally and internationally on issues of climate change, renewable energy, sustainable development and food systems. She is the founder and co-director of Honor the Earth, a national advocacy group encouraging public support and funding for native environmental groups.

In her own community in northern Minnesota, she founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation-based nonprofit organizations in the country and a leader in culturally based sustainable development strategies. LaDuke is also a two-time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party and a 2007 inductee in the National Women’s Hall of Fame. 

Her lecture is part of IJET’s commitment to foster cross-community ally-ship, build student capacity as effective activists and organizers, and support students in becoming institutional change agents and transformative leaders in working towards a just society. By bringing in powerful guests as part of the annual Social Justice Speakers and Trainers series, IJET provides opportunities for deep reflection and action around issues of social justice for multicultural students and their allies.

This event is also part of the Multicultural Student Center’s participation in the White House’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge, a joint commitment with the LUBAR Institute for the Study of Abrahamic Religions, the Morgridge Center for Public Service and other UW–Madison campus units and student organizations to promote interfaith understanding and cooperation through programming and community service.