A featured program for Native American Heritage Month.
Join our special guests Rosalyn LaPier and David R. M. Beck to hear the fascinating stories of Native Americans living in Illinois in the early 20th century.
University of Illinois’ famous alumnus, the Yavapai man Wassaja or Carlos Montezuma, was one of the most renowned physicians in the U.S. in the early 20th century. He was also a national advocate for Native American causes and issues from his base in Chicago. Learn about him and other Native men and women leaders who made northern Illinois an intellectual mecca for Indigenous people in the early 20th century.
Rosalyn LaPier is an award winning Indigenous writer, environmental historian, and ethnobotanist. She works within Indigenous communities to revitalize traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and to strengthen public policy for Indigenous languages. She has written two award winning books, two Blackfeet language lexicons, and dozens of articles and commentaries and she has over 25 years of teaching experience at research universities & Native American-controlled institutions at the undergraduate & graduate level. She splits her time between living in the lands of the Peoria & Potawatomi peoples in Urbana, Illinois, the Salish in Missoula, Montana, and the Blackfeet reservation. She is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and Métis.
David R. M. Beck is the author and co-author of several award-winning books on the history of federal American Indian policy and urban American Indian history, His most recent book, Bribed with Our Own Money, examines federal use of coercion and bribery in an effort to eliminate the U.S. relationship with American Indian nations in the 1950s and 1960s. Dr. Beck taught in the Native American Studies Department at the University of Montana for more than two decades, and prior to that at NAES (Native American Educational Services) College and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
This program is cosponsored by Native American House at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, and is part of Native American Heritage Month. See the complete listing of programs here.
AGE GROUP: | High School Students | Adults |
TAGS: | Native American Heritage Month |
Conveniently located at the corner of Race and Green in downtown Urbana.
