Two Shoshone-Bannock Tribes members have joined four other inductees as part of the 2023 National Native American Hall of Fame, according to a Wednesday press release from the organization.
All six Native Americans come from various backgrounds, including law, journalism, advocacy, writing and entertainment. The induction ceremony for the new members will take place this fall.
From the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, Mark Trahant is the editor-at-large at Indian Country Today. A Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist and former president of the Native American Journalists Association, the hall of fame is honoring Trahant for his work reporting in Native American communities.
Trahant was named Best Columnist by the Native American Journalists Association and was a co-winner of the Heywood Broun Award. In 2019, he also received the NAJA-Medill Milestone Achievement Award.
Trahant was the co-author of a series on federal Indian policy, and he has written multiple books. Trahant also served as chairman and chief executive officer at the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.
Like Trahant, the hall of fame is also honoring Shoshone-Bannock Tribes member LaNada Means War Jack. War Jack is a writer, activist and the first Native American student admitted to the University of California at Berkeley in 1968. She helped lead the Occupation of Alcatraz with other students in a peaceful protest of the federal government’s treatment of Native people and broken treaties with tribes.
While studying at UC Berkeley, War Jack participated as the Native American component of the Third Worlds Strike to establish the first Ethnic Studies Program in the UC statewide university system. She was also on the founding and executive board of the Native American Rights Fund for nearly a decade to pursue the enforcement of treaty obligations and Native rights. War Jack was the former councilwoman for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and served on many boards locally and nationally.
The four other 2023 inductees include Richard Trudell, a Santee Dakota and the founder of the American Indian Lawyer Training program; Joe DeLaCruz, the long-serving president of the Quinault Indian Nation; Will Sampson, a film and television actor from the Muscogee Creek Tribes; and Leslie Marmon Silko, an award-winning writer from the Laguna Pueblo Tribe.
About the National Native American Hall of Fame
Located at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City, the National Native American Hall of Fame’s mission is to “recognize and honor the inspirational achievements of Native Americans in contemporary history.”
According to the press release, the organization seeks to help people understand how Native Americans overcame the difficulties of early reservations and the trauma of Indian boarding schools, poverty, discrimination, racism and the cultural divide in workspaces.
The hall of fame has developed a biography-based curriculum for grades 8-12 that meets national content standards in the areas of literacy, social studies, health, science and art. The curriculum is intended to introduce students to noteworthy individuals who have been inducted into the hall of fame.
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