Winona LaDuke

Winona LaDuke's activist journey began in 1989 with the founding of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, a platform aimed at land reclamation and sustainable development. The same year, she was recognized by Time magazine as one of America's fifty most promising leaders under forty. Her leadership and commitment to social justice were further acknowledged by the Thomas Merton Award in 1996 and the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1998. She was also named Woman of the Year by Ms. Magazine in 1998.

In addition to her activism, LaDuke is a seasoned political figure. She was the vice-presidential candidate alongside Ralph Nader on the Green Party ticket in 1996 and 2000. In a historic event in 2016, she received an Electoral College vote for vice president, making her the first Green Party member and the first Native American woman to achieve this feat. Her political involvement extends to her roles as executive director and co-founder of Honor the Earth until 2023, and her active participation in protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 and the Line 3 pipeline in 2020 and 2021.

LaDuke is not only a prominent figure in activism and politics but also in the field of sustainable agriculture. She operates a 40-acre industrial hemp farm on the White Earth Indian Reservation and advocates for the economic development of hemp and solar power as part of the "next economy". Her efforts have been widely recognized, earning her an honorary doctorate degree from Augsburg College in 2015 and the Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy and Tolerance from the University of California, Merced in 2017. She has been featured in multiple documentary films, including "Anthem," "Uranium," and "The Main Stream," and made a notable appearance on "The Colbert Report" in 2008.