Strong Hearted Women

As a policy advocate, curator, poet, and founder of The Morning Star Institute, Harjo has been at the center of almost every legislative, legal, and cultural issue of import to Native Peoples, including protection of ancestors, children, cultural rights, land, water, and sacred places, as well as the return of over one million acres of Indigenous lands. She was a founding trustee of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014.  

Nagle is an incredible playwright, lawyer, and advocate. As a lawyer, she has represented missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and has litigated numerous cultural and treaty cases. She has authored numerous briefs in federal appellate courts, including the US Supreme Court. Her plays include Manahatta, Sliver of a Full Moon, and Sovereignty. Her plays have been produced at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Public Theater, and Arena Stage among others and she is the former executive director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program.