“Seed Sovereignty: Who Owns the Seeds of the World, Native Rights and Food Security”

We are delighted to host Winona LaDuke, an environmentalist, economist, writer,
and activist for Native American rights for this year's Jane Addams Birthday
Conversation on Peace and Justice.  In 1996 and 2000, LaDuke ran for election
to the office of Vice President of the United States as the nominee of the
United States Green Party.  

Winona LaDuke grew up in Los Angeles, California. She is an enrolled member of
the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg of the White Earth reservation in northern
Minnesota. Her father was an actor in westerns as well as an Indian activist.
Her mother was an art professor. She credits her parents for passing the spirit
of activism on to her. LaDuke became involved in Native American environmental
issues after meeting Cherokee activist Jimmy Durham as a student at Harvard.
She began making a political name for herself at age 18 when she addressed the
United Nations on Indian issues.

After graduating from Harvard in 1982
with a bachelor’s degree in native economic development, LaDuke moved to
White Earth. There, she founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project to
reclaim Anishinaabeg lands that had been promised by an 1867 federal treaty but
had been slowly stolen and parceled by the U.S. government at the behest of the
logging industry. Although LaDuke often found herself embroiled in losing legal
battles, she persevered, securing grants and winning a Reebok Human Rights
Award. With these funds, she and White Earth have reclaimed 1,000 acres and
hope to acquire 30,000 more in the next 15 years.

The challenge is huge.
More than 90 percent of White Earth’s original 837,000 acres remain in the
hands of non-Indians. LaDuke says if a people do not have control of their land
they do not control their destiny.

In 1994, Time magazine named LaDuke
one of the nation’s 50 most promising leaders under the age of 40. Today, she
is known as a voice for American Indian economic and environmental concerns
throughout the United States and internationally.

Jane Addams was the co-founder of the Hull-House Settlement, a pioneer social
reformer, internationalist, feminist, and peace activist.  In 1931, she became
the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.  Addams and the
residents of the Hull-House advocated for public health, fair labor practices,
full citizenship rights for immigrants, public education, recreational and
public space, public arts, and free speech. We take the opportunity on her
birthday to celebrate the Hull-House progressive tradition, but also offer an
opportunity to look forward and to cross various boundaries to bring together
people working on issues of peace broadly defined.

Previous speakers for Jane Addams Birthday Conversations on Peace and Justice
have included three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee and peace activist Kathy
Kelly, and Code Pink Founder Medea Benjamin.  **************************
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