Young people called to action at national Native youth conference

More than 1,600 attended the event in Minneapolis

Jul 12, 20220

Elizabeth Flores, Star Tribune count

Winona LaDuke (Ojibwe), left, Judith LeBlanc (Caddo Nation of Oklahoma), center, and Madonna Thunder Hawk (Oohenumpa Band of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe), right, spoke on the topic of activism at the 2022 National Unity Conference at the Minneapolis Convention Center on Monday. The conference was open to Native students from across the country and had a theme of "Restoring the Spirit of Native Youth."

The young Navajo woman broke down in tears as she described how tribal members in the Southwest had unsuccessfully battled the building of a border wall on sacred ancestral sites.

"When you lose that fight, what do you do?" she asked, standing in an audience before a panel of Indigenous elders. "What do you do after all that?"

More than 1,600 people from across the country came to the Minneapolis Convention Center in recent days for a tribal youth conference, and they eagerly sought insight from activists they'd heard so much about growing up. The panel commiserated with their questioner.

https://www.startribune.com/young-people-called-to-action-at-national-native-youth-conference/600189380/