Native Vote: Why Winning Indian Country Matters to You
Session Type(s): Panel
Starts: Thursday, Jun. 20 6:00 PM (Eastern)
Ends: Thursday, Jun. 20 7:15 PM (Eastern)
This panel of Native Vote organizers and strategists will engage participants on why winning Indian country is vital to all people, not just one demographic. How do the political and public policy interests of Native Vote intersect with larger voting blocs? How can progressives ensure that Native issues and the Native community are addressed and well-represented?
Moderator
Prairie Rose Seminole
As North Dakota’s Native Vote director, Prairie Rose works around the country with the Native American Leadership Program, with Wellstone Action to train and empower leaders, activists, campaign workers, and those seeking elected office.
Prairie Rose has served as a District 45 delegate to the North Dakota Democratic Convention since 2008 and as the Native American liaison to the DEM-NPL Executive Committee. In 2010 she ran for State Representative in North Dakota’s 45th legislative district.
Prairie Rose believes in and emphasizes the interconnected nature of humanity and faith and the responsibility we all have to ensuring social accountability in communities of respect and opportunity – an understanding that lies at the core of her being. She brings her personal experience, as well as the perspectives of a wide range of social thinkers to her work, and believes that knowing personal truth, and building relationships based on values is fundamental to change work.
Other sessions: Base Building and Elections: Winning While Building Grassroots Power
Panelists
Meteor Blades
Meteor Blades is the on-line moniker of Timothy Lange, born in 1946. An enrolled member of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, he has been politically active since 1964 when he participated in voter registration in Mississippi with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee in Freedom Summer. He was involved as an organizer in Students for a Democratic Society and, for 16 years, as a member of the American Indian Movement. He was incarcerated at the Industrial School for Boys in Golden, Colorado, for 23 months and spent 13 months at a federal prison camp for refusing the draft.
His most serious political campaign work was in third-tier paid positions for Pat Schroeder and Tim Wirth during their first election efforts in 1972 and 1974, respectively.
In 1973, together with 14 other women and men, he co-founded and served on the board of the Boulder Valley Clinic, one of the nation’s first nonprofit abortion providers, which remains in operation today. He has been a reporter, editor and publisher for both alternative and mainstream publications, finishing his three decades in journalism at the Los Angeles Times. Over the years, he has broken stories about U.S. involvement in Guatemalan genocide, “Star Wars” technology, federal “Crisis Relocation” plans, leaking uranium mills and other environmental disasters, including destructive development in coastal Bali. He now lives just south of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Peggy Flanagan
Peggy Flanagan is a dynamic teacher, trainer, and community and political organizer. She is an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. Peggy is the Director of External Affairs at Wellstone Action – the country’s largest progressive training center. She also serves as adjunct faculty for the George Washington University’s Native American Political Leadership Program.
Recently named as one of the top 100 most influential people in Minnesota politics by Campaigns & Elections magazine, Peggy was the First Americans GOTV Coordinator in Minnesota for Barack Obama’s Campaign for Change and Al Franken for Senate campaign. Peggy was elected to the Minneapolis School Board in 2004 and was the first Native American to serve on that body.
Peggy graduated from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor’s degree in American Indian Studies and child psychology.
Peggy lives in Minneapolis with her husband, Tim and their dog, Reuben.
Other sessions: Base Building and Elections: Winning While Building Grassroots Power