KPFA's Abolish Racism Audio Collection

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz in Berkeley

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz in Berkeley 10-2-2014 | Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

In An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma, the daughter of a farmer and half- Indian mother. Active in the American Indian Movement for more than four decades,She is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. After earning her PhD in history at U.C.L.A., she taught in the Native American Studies Program at Calofrnia State University and helped found the departments of Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies. Her 1977 book, The Great Sioux Nation was the fundamental document at the first international conferinece on Indians in the Americas, held at the United Nations’ headquarters in Genea. She is the author or editor of seven books, including Outlaw Woman, a Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975, and Blood on the Border: Memoir of the Contra War.

Lakota Harden – orator, community organizer, activist, radio host and poet, daughter of seven generations of Lakota leaders – is currently a host on the weekly radio program Bay Native Circle on Pacifica radio station KPFA. The program features interviews, current events and perspectives of the Native American community.