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Photo: Native American Voting Rights Coalition (NAVRC) meeting in Washington, D.C., September 2023. (Courtesy NARF)

Census data shows that roughly 1-in-4 Native Americans are not registered to vote. But, in recent years, three states in the Mountain West region have passed laws to allow tribes to register them automatically.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel has more.

Native Americans often have to travel long distances to register to vote.

Many don’t have access to postal service, making it hard to register through the mail. And the lack of internet makes it difficult to do it online.

Allison Neswood (Navajo) is a staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund.

“All of that is rooted in the historic treatment of Native American communities. And so it’s, I think, our collective responsibility to make sure that our communities can overcome these barriers and have a say in the leadership that impacts our communities every day.”

Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico now give tribes the option to use automatic voter registration. Michigan does as well.

That could mean eligible citizens are automatically registered when they enroll in a tribe.

So far, no tribe is doing this yet – but many are working with the states on the implementation details.

Federal grant money is supporting an organization rehabilitating the land and training tribal youth.

Eric Tegethoff has more.

The Interior Department’s Indian Youth Service Corps has awarded the Lomakatsi Restoration Project a grant of $300,000.

The funds will support the organization’s Tribal Youth Ecological Stewardship Training and Employment program.

Marko Bey, executive director of the project, said the Indian Youth Service Corps supports tribal young people age 18 to 30, and up to 35 if they are veterans.

“What it’s focused on is providing paid to train opportunities for tribal members to work on their ancestral lands or neighboring ancestral lands. Engaged in ecosystem restoration or eco-culture restoration work.”

The Lomakatsi Restoration Project has been around since 1995 and is based in Ashland, Oreg.

Bey noted the focus is on ecosystem resilience and reducing large wildfires that have become more prevalent and destructive in recent decades.

The organization works in Oregon and northern California.

The goal of the Indian Youth Service Corps grant is for the organization to train 12 tribal youth from seven tribal communities on restoration in southern Oregon.

Belinda Brown, director of tribal partnerships for the group, said the program will prepare the young people for careers in forestry work.

“The success is the youth having family wage jobs, of them being able to contribute and help their family, of them being able to be successful in their community,” Brown outlined. “Which elevates them to the mentors for that next generation.”

Bey added the goal is also to include tribes in restoration and management work.

“This gives an opportunity to get the lands treated in an ecological way. And to get cultural fire ultimately back on the ground, incorporating Indigenous, traditional ecological knowledge with Western science into the work.”

A group of senators is pressing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fix problems with the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR).

There has been widespread disruptions in food distribution since April.

FDPIR provides food to income-eligible households on reservations across the country.

The program has experienced delays, missed food deliveries, partial deliveries, and deliveries of expired products.

Many families who use the program are said to be receiving less food or no food at all.

A bipartisan group of senators sent letters to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack pressing him to urgently address the problems.

The disruptions are said to be impacting more than 100 tribal organizations and thousands of people.

 

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This month, many Indigenous people across Canada are marking the 10th anniversary of the death of Tina Fontaine.

She disappeared in July 2014.

The 15-year old’s body was found in Winnipeg’s Red River.

As Dan Karpenchuk reports, Fontaine’s death threw an international spotlight on missing and murdered Indigenous people in Canada and led to a national inquiry.

About 100 members of the Sagkeeng First Nation, where Fontaine was from, honored her legacy a decade after her death.

They marched across their community, 80 miles northeast of Winnipeg, in support of Fontaine’s family.

And in Winnipeg, Manitoba’s Minister of Families Nahanni Fontaine (no relation) said her provincial government is honoring Fontaine with an investment of nearly CAD$1 million ($740,000).

 

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‘This funding will support operations and programming at Tina’s Safe Haven, including counselling support, program mentors, resources, and health care from an Indigenous-led perspective with a focus on relationship building.’

Tina’s Safe Haven is run by a non-profit organization dedicated to helping at risk young people.

It’s a 24-hour drop in center for those 13 to 24.

The minister also said that Tina’s legacy is enormous and she said we honor her memory in the sacred work we do to protect women, girls, and youth.

Nahanni Fontaine also said ten years after her death, the Manitoba government is working to protect Manitobans like her by supporting community partners and programs on the front lines.

Of the nearly $1 million, about CAD$400,000 ($296,000) will go to partnering with the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre for weeklong public health nursing.

The remainder of the money will go to operating costs and programming.

In South Dakota, the Bennett County government has agreed to open a satellite voting location to better serve Indigenous communities.

This follows claims that the county violated the civil rights of Native Americans by limiting access to polls.

Bennett County lies within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation, though its county seat, the town of Martin, is mostly split demographically between Native American and non-Native residents.

The agreement aims to make voting and registration opportunities available to Native voters outside Martin city limits.

A memorandum between the U.S. Justice Department and Bennett County says the office will be in the predominantly Native community of Allen, located in the northwest corner of the county.

An official with the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is helping bring Ojibwe to a galaxy far, far away.

As Danielle Kaeding reports, the tribe’s language-culture coordinator is a voice actor in an Ojibwe dubbing of the first Star Wars film ever made.

The Force is with Niigaanii-Animikii Inini Kalvin Hartwig.

“I’ve been a Star Wars fan since I was a kid, so this is checking all the boxes for me.”

Hartwig, who lives in Washburn, Wisc. is the Red Cliff tribe’s language-culture coordinator.

He lent his voice to the character “Red Leader” in an Ojibwe dubbing of Star Wars: A New Hope.

Hartwig says it took about an hour to record around 40 lines for the project in Winnipeg this spring.

“I hope young people and adults alike watch this film and are inspired to either continue learning the Ojibwe language or to start their Ojibwe learning journey.”

The film will be screened at select theaters in Wisconsin beginning August 30.

The Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance has announced recipients of the 2024 Indigenous Seed Keepers Stipends.

A total of 45 individuals from 36 different tribes have been awarded $2,000 each to support efforts in preserving and cultivating traditional seeds within their communities.

The stipends were made possible by Ceres Trust.

 

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Vice President Kamala Harris will officially accept her party’s nomination for president at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night in Chicago.

Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) formally accepted his nomination for vice president Wednesday.

As National Native News anchor Antonia Gonzales reports, Native Americans at the DNC say it’s important for the next administration to keep the federal government’s trust and treaty obligations.

Native people at the DNC say there are a number of tribal issues that need to be addressed by the next administration.

Duane Duffy is vice president of the Mescalero Apache Tribe in New Mexico.

“We want to see an investment in head start facilities, head start education, and the federal government to honor and respect the treaties that were signed and that trust responsibility owed to the tribal governments and tribal citizens.”

Kansas delegate Carole Cadue-Blackwood (enrolled member of the Kickapoo Tribe) says she’d like the next administration to further the boarding school report by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo), which investigated the troubled legacy of federal Indian boarding schools.

“I would like to see someone support, enforce, endorse the Indian boarding school report, and Deb Haaland one of her recommendations is that schools should teach Native American curriculum. That’s history, culture, language.”

Ellen Williams, a member of the Native community in Chicago, says she’d like see the next president and vice president make sure to protect the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) as the law, intended to keep Native children with Native families, continues to be challenged.

“When people attack our families and our children, steal our children, remove our children it’s a way for genocide, if we can’t keep our children, all of our love, and all of our future is with our babies.”

In her role as vice president, during remarks at the 2023 White House Tribal Nations Summit in Washington, DC, Vice President Harris told tribal leaders she’ll continue to defend the ICWA.

At the summit, Harris also recognized tribal sovereignty and told leaders she’s committed to speaking truth about the horrors of federal Indian boarding schools and work on healing intergenerational trauma.

This week, Gov. Walz made an appearance at a Native caucus meeting.

In his remarks, he acknowledged tribal sovereignty saying in Minnesota it’s about actions on every decision that needs to be done.

The DNC wraps up on Thursday.

Watch our special coverage of Harris’ acceptance speech featuring “Native America Calling” host Shawn Spruce and Antonia Gonzales Thursday starting at 8 p.m. CT live from the DNC

A new episode of the public radio program Reveal explores the controversial adoption of a Northern Cheyenne child by a wealthy white family in Utah.

Co-reporter Bernice Yeung says the saga started in 2017 when David Leavitt, the politically connected brother of former Gov. Mike Leavitt (R-UT), traveled to the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Montana.

A Native woman with connections to his wife’s family was struggling and had a young child. Leavitt thought he could help through adoption.

“In that whole process, members of the child’s Native family have raised concerns and have objected to the adoption. So the story really looks at how well the Indian Child Welfare Act was followed.”

The act is intended to keep Native families together. But relatives say, after the mother was arrested and the child put in the care of the BIA, Leavitt became a temporary guardian.

Weeks later, the Leavitts adopted the child, against the wishes of the biological father and other Native relatives.

“Another important aspect of this is the history of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints Indian Student placement program. It’s now a defunct program, but for nearly 50 years, students were taken from the reservation and placed in LDS Family foster homes. The aim was to educate children, but also of course assimilation and baptism.”

The Reveal episode drops this Saturday.

Watch Mike Leavitt’s interview with a documentarian in 2020, which was reportedly given to Homeland Security investigators as part of a criminal human trafficking probe

 

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Native Americans at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago are focusing in on how to get Native voters to the polls in November.

National Native News anchor Antonia Gonzales is at the DNC and has more.

Tribal leaders and Native vote organizers say they’re working to protect Native voting rights and are reaching out to people in tribal communities encouraging them to vote.

Gila River Indian Community Governor Stephen Roe Lewis says he’s an advocate for his people.

At the convention this week, the leader was seen holding his cellphone and sending a video message out on social media to his community.

 

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“That’s going back home. That’s going back to the Gila River Indian Community and all, hopefully all of the 22 tribes in Arizona. As we know, the need of vote is going to be critical, especially in Arizona, the battleground state as well.”

After listening to a panel on the Native Vote 2024, Gena Kakkak, chairwoman of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, says she sees the value in talking to community members about voting.

“To make sure that we get them to the polls. Looking at that younger generation, the 18-to-24-year olds having them engaged and participating. And just really encouraging that message to get out and vote and to make sure that our voices are being heard.”

Debbie Nez-Manuel, Arizona DNC Committeewoman, says it’s helpful attending the convention, where she’s hearing and learning about Native vote efforts across the country and in her state.

“This morning we heard from the Arizona Political Network that Montana produced over 60,000 voters and that was really powerful.”

Judith LeBlanc, Executive director of the Native Organizers Alliance, says her group’s efforts are on the grassroots level.

“We’ve been organizing since dirt. We know how to organize. We do know what the problems are. So, what we need is the opportunity to voice those during the election because, guess what, on election day, that’s a snapshot of the organized power of our communities.”

LeBlanc says the Native vote contributes to building healthy and safe tribal communities.

A Rapid City-based clinic is reopening its doors after not seeing patients for nearly a year and a half.

SDPB’s Lee Strubinger has more on the Native Women’s Health Care.

The clinic hadn’t seen patients since April of 2023.

A report from last year pointed to staffing issues leading to a large drop in appointments starting in 2021.

Clinic officials say it offers OBGYN services, prenatal care, and STI testing.

It will still refer deliveries to Monument Health.

The clinic has hired a midwife and registered nurse.

Clinic director Waysha White Face says patients should schedule appointments immediately.

“And as fast as you can. We announced last week that we were opening up for this week and we filled up within two days. The service is very needed here, especially to our native American women here in the community.”

The services are available to Indian Health Service-eligible tribal members.

The clinic was funded through an agreement with OST, Rosebud, and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes.

Earlier this year, Rosebud and Cheyenne River pulled their funding, citing concerns the clinic had not seen patients for over a year.

Enrolled Rosebud and Cheyenne River members now go to Oyate Health Clinic for women’s health services.

Oglala Sioux Tribal president Frank Star Comes Out says it’s unfortunate the other tribes pulled out.

He says OST found resources to reopen the Native Women’s Health Clinic.

“I’m glad its finally happening. This is going to be huge, I believe, in the future because of the need. Looking forward to seeing that in the future for our membership.”

Star Comes Out says he’s confident the clinic will remain open beyond his administration.

This story has been corrected to better reflect who is eligible for services. Original reporting said it was limited to enrolled Oglala Sioux Tribal members.

 

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Native Americans are among those gathered in the Windy City for the Democratic National Convention (DNC) to discuss tribal priorities with elected officials.

National Native News anchor Antonia Gonzales reports from Chicago.

Native people from across the country gathered in a packed room for a Native American Caucus meeting.

The meeting is among 33 council and caucus meetings the DNC is hosting this week.

Attendees at the Monday morning meeting including convention delegates, tribal leaders, and community members.

It began with a prayer and land acknowledgement.

Panel discussions were paused as special guests made appearances, including Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ).

The room was overwhelmed with excitement when vice-presidential hopeful, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), walked in.

“There’s something in Minnesota that we take seriously and that’s tribal sovereignty.”

Gov. Walz, in brief remarks, acknowledged tribal sovereignty and the 11 Native Nations in his state.

Gov. Walz says tribal consultation is key when addressing Indian Country issues, including economic development, education, and environmental and health issues.

Before exiting, Gov. Walz recognized Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (White Earth Nation/D-MN).

He says if the Harris-Walz ticket wins in November, it also means a win for Lt. Gov. Flanagan, who would become governor.

Arizona DNC delegate and Gila River Indian Community Governor Stephen Roe Lewis is among those excited about both the Harris-Walz ticket and Lt. Gov. Flanagan’s possible next leadership role.

“Of course, she knows firsthand how important tribal sovereignty is, how important it is for that state-tribal partnership as well, that if we elect Gov. Tim Walz as our next vice president, Vice President Kamala Harris as our next president, but she (Lt. Gov. Flanagan) would be the first Native governor of a state and also the first female governor of the state of Minnesota. It’s amazing.”

The Native American Caucus continued with panel discussions including on the topic of the Native Vote 2024.

The caucus will meet again on Wednesday.

As the school year approaches, one Indigenous-led organization is handing out backpacks to Rapid City, S.D. kids.

As SDPB’s Lee Strubinger reports, NDN Collective officials say they distributed more than 2,000 backpacks last Friday.

The line for families seeking backpacks for the upcoming school year wrapped around the Journey Museum parking lot near downtown Rapid City.

This is the fourth year in a row NDN Collective has handed out school supplies to Native children before school starts.

Despite handing out thousands of backpacks, the organization ran out of supplies to those still standing in line.

 

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Nick Tilsen is the CEO of NDN Collective. He says the backpack giveaway has grown every year.

“A lot of people who have privilege and have resources don’t realize that going back to school is a good thing, but it’s also a very expensive thing. But we’ve also noticed thousands of people coming here and the community being really grateful for it and, really, it helping reduce stress for families too.”

Tilsen says NDN Collective is focused on education for Native children to combat the school-to-prison pipeline.

The group is also backing the Oceti Sakowin Community Academy, a private school founded in Lakota language, culture, and spirituality.

Mary Bowman heads of the school, which is heading into its third year.

“In November, we will be out on the land where our school will eventually be built—our permanent building. It’s something that we’re looking forward to doing and I know our kids are super excited to be in our own building because that’ll allow us to do more things—like after school programming, summer programming for our students and families.”

The academy has been operating in churches around the city.

The new facility is in a development in north Rapid City.

 

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The Democratic National Convention kicks off this week in Chicago.

Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to receive her party’s nomination for presidential candidate, to run against former president, Republican Donald Trump.

Courting the Native American vote is seen as vital with tight contests in key battleground states with sizable Indian populations.

Last week at a rally in Glendale, Ariz., Harris appealed to Native voters.

“…As president, I will tell you, I will always honor tribal sovereignty, and respect tribal self-determination.”

Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada have high numbers of Native Americans and are all considered battleground states this year.

Former president Trump has also courted the Native vote, including at an October 2020 stop in North Carolina.

“Way up here, Native Americans. That’s why we’re here. The last administration promised to bring hope and change to Indian Country. But they cruelly abandoned you the moment they got your vote. And they went to Washington. That’s what they do.”

Trump lost his re-election bid, with many Native Americans criticizing his ending of an annual White House Tribal Nations Conference started by President Obama, and the curtailing of environmental regulations while president.

And his running mate J.D. Vance has fired up controversy over past remarks on Two Spirits and Indigenous Peoples Day.

Issues being raised by Native Americans this campaign season include water rights, education, health care, and leniency for Leonard Peltier, among others.

Stay tuned to National Native News all this week with reports from the DNC by Antonia Gonzales as part of our Native Vote 2024 coverage – and a special live program Thursday night during Harris’ acceptance speech on NV1.org and your local station

Voters across a rural Northern California county will decide whether to change the name of a town that honors a 19th century settler who had enslaved and murdered Pomo and Wappo peoples.

Jacob Resneck reports.

The town of Kelseyville was named for Andrew Kelsey, who in the 1840s, raped, tortured, and murdered Indigenous peoples forced to work on his cattle ranch near Clear Lake about 85 miles northeast of San Francisco.

He and his business partner were killed in an 1849 uprising led by the Pomo and Wappo people he had enslaved.

The following year, a bloody reprisal by the U.S. Calvary killed hundreds of Pomo, mostly women, old men, and children in a dark chapter known as the Bloody Island Massacre.

For decades, the name Kelseyville has been controversial as it honors a man who had committed crimes against Pomo and Wappo peoples.

And a citizen movement has, in recent years, pushed to change the town’s name to Konocti, after the 4,300 ft volcano that towers over the town.

Opponents to the name change had urged the county supervisors to limit an advisory vote to those who live in the immediate community.

But Lake County Supervisors voted 3-2 last month to make the vote countywide.

Supervisor Moke Simon, who is also tribal chairman of the nearby Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians, said it will be a referendum on how far Lake County has evolved in its understanding of history that predates European settlement.

“I want it on record where this county stands with the Indigenous people that lived here and have been here before it was created.”

The non-binding vote will appear on the November 5 ballot, but the ultimate authority to change the community of Kelseyville’s name to Konocti lies with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.

 

 

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