Host Max Rameau talks with Judith Le Blanc of the Native Organizers Alliance. Together, they discuss organizing in Native nations, protecting sacred spaces, lessons from Standing Rock, and celebrating victories.
Judith LeBlanc is a member of the Caddo Tribe who has an endless appetite for fry bread, an inter-tribal culinary delight! As the executive director of Native Organizers Alliance (NOA), she has learned many intertribal secrets to good fry bread. She leads a national Native training and organizing network which supports tribes, traditional societies, and grassroots community groups in urban and tribal communities. Judith is part of a growing circle of Indian Country leaders who understand the necessity for an organized, durable ecosystem of Native leaders and organizers who lead with traditional values.
NOA leads learning circles, training, and strategic planning sessions to support Native leaders in organizing the grassroots movements for structural reforms, leading to Native sovereignty and racial equity for all. Judith has worked since 2016 with the Brave Heart Society, a traditional Dakota women’s society, and the Yankton Sioux Tribe on the Mni Wakan Wizipan. It is a project to re-establish the Yankton Sioux and other Oceti Sakowin tribes’ inherent rights to co-management the Missouri River bio-region. Judith is a board member of IllumiNative and chair of the board of NDN. She is a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow.
To learn more about the topics we discussed:
Native Organizers Alliance
Wounded Knee