Biography of Wilma Mankiller

Wilma Mankiller served for two years as the first female elected deputy chief and for ten years as first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.  Her areas of expertise include governance, community development and the conceptualization and development of an extensive array of projects ranging from basic infrastructure and enterprises to health clinics and programs for children and youth.

She serves on the Board of Trustees of the Freedom Forum and the Board of Directors of the Newseum, a $400 million museum of the news in Washington, D.C.  She also serves as an external diversity advisor to Merrill Lynch. 

Wilma was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, the International Women’s Hall of Fame, the Minority Business Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame, and the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.  She has l8 honorary doctorates from universities, including Yale, Dartmouth and Smith Colleges.

She was a Chubb Fellow at Yale and a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth.  She served as the Morse Chair Professor of Law and Politics at the University of Oregon in the fall of 2005.  She has presented more than l00 lectures at universities and published more than a dozen papers in journals and newspapers. She is one of a handful of Native American recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

She co-edited A Reader’s Companion to the History of Women in the U.S., Houghton-Mifflin, co-authored, Mankiller:  A Chief and Her People, St. Martin’s Press, and her newest book, Every Day is a Good Day  was published by Fulcrum Press in the fall of 2004. 

Ms. Mankiller lives in the Cherokee Nation in rural Northeast Oklahoma with her husband, Charlie Soap.

SPEECH TOPICS

The Role of Women in the 21st Century
Community Centered Leadership: Leading from the Heart
Contemporary Issues of Native Americans
The Role of Positive Thinking in Native American Life
Controlling Our Own Image: The Public Perception of Native Americans