Marcella LeBeau, a 99-year-old World War II veteran from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, asks the 2020 presidential candidates about their support for the Remove the Stain Act, a bill to rescind the Medals of Honor for the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, at the Frank LaMere Native American Presidential Forum in Sioux City, Iowa, on August 20, 2019. Photo: Ho-Chunk Inc

Native Sun News Today: 'Indigenous Matriarchs Rising' celebrates Women's History Month

Friday, March 13, 2020

By Talli Nauman

Native Sun News Today

Health & Environment Editor

nativesunnews.today

Note: The event featuring Marcella LeBeau has been postponed. The event with Carla Douglas is still scheduled to take place.

RAPID CITY – Marcella LeBeau, the oldest living tribal member on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, is set to headline a celebration of the annual nationwide Women's History Month here on March 14.

The event “Indigenous Matriarchs Rising” offers an admission-free talking circle discussion on “defining the roll of a matriarch in our communities,” according to host Lily Mendoza, social entrepreneur and owner of the Bird Cage Book Store and Mercantile, where it is scheduled from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

$fx Marcella LeBeau in 1944. Courtesy photo

Native Sun News Today Columnist Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is slated to join LeBeau. Award-winning artist and poet Sandy Swallow-Morgan is invited, as well as others distinguished elders and guests.

In addition, mental health counselor Carla Douglas has scheduled a presentation and workshop from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. entitled “Life and Hope after Trauma.”

LeBeau, 100, served as a nurse at the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. She is a member of the Two Kettle Band from Eagle Butte. A former Tribal Council member, she received the National Congress of American Indians’ Special Recognition Award in February.

Cook-Lynn, 89, a member of the Sisseton Santee Dakota Band raised on the Crow Creek Indian Reservation, is a writer, poet, and professor emerita of Native American Studies at Eastern Washington University.

Swallow-Morgan, 70, is an Oglala Lakota tribal member with Northern Cheyenne and Rosebud roots, is known for wood-block prints and painting that have garnered recognition at Native CAIRNS and Indian art markets nationwide. Her blogging with “Insights of a Lakota Unci” has led her to expand into digital forums.