Ladonna harris autobiography of a facebook

As a Comanche woman, LaDonna Harris is a prominent leader for native rights. She holds the values of her tribe and people very close to her heart. Growing up in Oklahoma, she was raised in a multicultural background. Having respect for one another but keeping your values close at heart is part of the Comanche way of life.

She recalled a story for me about how when she was growing up, the preacher in her grandmother’s church was preaching against the ways of traditional Indian medicine. Her grandfather followed traditional medicine ways, and her grandmother was Christian. When LaDonna asked her grandfather about how he put up with the preacher, he said, “You don’t mess with somebody else’s medicine.” When discussing her grandparents’ values, she said, “They were just opposite of each other, yet they were very comfortable in that relationship because they would honor each other’s beliefs. He would drive us to church and sit outside the church…, And so that was the atmosphere I grew up we had kinfolks all around us.”

Holding relationships close to oneself is not only a Comanche value but has also been a driving factor of LaDonna Harris’s success in Washington, DC. She moved to Washington DC when her husband, Fred Harris, was running for US senator in 1964, “And so I was a political wife. But he [Fred Harris] wouldn’t do anything without me going with it. And I was only in Oklahoma running for Senate. Women didn’t get involved at that time.” Although women were not the face of politics in the sixties, LaDonna participated in the ways that many women and wives did at the time; by holding extensive dinner parties. These dinner parties were the gateway to creating friendships that could change policy and promote community.

During the determination period beginning in the 1960s, when the federal government stopped recognizing about 50 to 10

Indigenous Peoples Activist, LaDonna Harris

Comanche activist LaDonna Harris is the founder and president of Americans for Indian Opportunity, an organization whose mission “advances, from an Indigenous worldview, the cultural, political and economic rights of Indigenous peoples in the United States and around the world.” Before that, she acquired an incredible resume of Indigenous activism. From founding Americans for Indian Opportunity to being appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the National Council on Indian Opportunity, Harris has been a key figure in fighting for Indigenous Peoples’ Rights. Her influence has touched many organizations including the National Indian Housing Council, the Council of Energy Resource Tribes, the National Tribal Environmental Council, and the National Indian Business Association.

Ms. Harris’ Indigenous heritage has always been a part of her life; as a child, she was raised on a farm in a self-governing Indigenous community near Walters, Oklahoma. When she was married to U.S. Senator Fred Harris, she pursued a life of public service but was denied membership into the Junior League of Oklahoma because of her Comanche ethnicity. Ms. Harris didn’t let that stop her, and instead, she began what would be her long history of Indigenous Peoples’ activism by founding the non-profit organization, Americans for Indian Opportunity.

While being married to Senator Harris, and living in Washington D.C., she created the course “Indian 101” and began teaching it to members of Congress at the request of President Johnson. Harris taught “Indian 101” for thirty years, and during that time she advised many institutions on Indigenous Peoples’ rights as well as helping return native lands to many Alaskan and New Mexico tribes. Still an activist and leader as the president of Americans for Indian Opportunity, Harris has helped establish an ambassador program that pulls young professionals to represent their nation.

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Each week for 26 weeks, I am publishing a post about women who are not widely known but should be—women who can inspire us, teach us, and encourage us to get out of our comfort zones and reach for our dreams. Week 12 of my A to Z challenge introduces us to LaDonna Harris.

If we are related to all things, we have responsibility to each other, to our family, to our community … to the world. ~LaDonna Harris

When I think of women who have dedicated their lives to a cause and worked tirelessly as advocates, LaDonna Harris is one of the first to come to mind. And yet, if I mention her in conversation, most people shake their heads and ask, “who?” Even among Native activists, she is not as well known as men like Dennis Banks, Russell Means, and Leonard Peltier, or other women like Wilma Mankiller and Ada Deer. But perhaps that is because she has been a different kind of activist and leader: “Her name is not as well known as others because she does not fit neatly within the Western conceptualization of leadership, which tends to privilege one person in a hierarchical position of power….Harris cannot be associated with only one job or position, however. She has never held an elected or government-appointed office, tribal or federal. Yet, Harris’s work has easily been as important as the work of her peers….Her accomplishments are less about what she did…than about what she created” (Cobb).

Born LaDonna Vita Tabbytite in Temple, Oklahoma in 1931, she was the daughter of Donald Crawford and Lily Tabbytite, a Comanche. Her parents separated shortly after her birth, and LaDonna was raised by her maternal grandparents, Wick-kie and John Tabbytite, who taught her the values of Comanche culture: “Perhaps one of the most important elements of Comanche culture for me is our system of kinship—we understand our own identities through our families and clans and the particular responsibility that comes with each relationship….For Comanches, a child is br

Not content to remain in the background, LaDonna became a well-known political figure in her own right, serving on the National Indian Opportunities Council as President Lyndon B. Johnson’s appointee and working beside such notable political figures as Hubert Humphrey, Robert Kennedy, and Sargent Shriver. In 1980 she became the vice-presidential nominee for the environmentalist Citizen’s Party. Her story provides a witty and valuable American Indian insider’s view of modern national political scenes.