LaDonna Harris, Activist (b. 1931)

Founder, President, Americans for Indian Opportunity

 

Last updated 5/25/2013 at 10:48am

K.B. Schaller

LaDonna Harris, an advisor to U.S. presidents is an amazing woman. Her personal struggles led her to become a passionate advocate for indigenous peoples. She has been called the Rosa Parks and the Coretta Scott King of the Indian Movement.

One of the twentieth century’s most influential Native Americans in politics, Comanche social activist LaDonna Vita Tabbytite Harris was born February 15, 1931 in Temple, Oklahoma on a Comanche allotment to William Crawford who was of European descent, and Lilly Tabbytite.

Her parents separated shortly after her birth and LaDonna was reared in Indian Country during the Great Depression by maternal grandparents John and Wick-kie Tabbytite on a farm near tiny Walters, Oklahoma.

LaDonna’s grandfather was part of the last efforts to resist the United States’ encroachment on Comanche lands...



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