Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine

Today we’re talking with Samsoche Sampson (Mvskoke Creek/Seneca) who is an interdisciplinary artist, powwow and hoop dancer, performer, musician, as well as a father and partner. Samsoche and his brother, Luhme, make up the world-renowned hoop dancing team known as the Sampson Brothers, who over twenty-five years have performed throughout the world: on stage in big cities and at powwows in remote Indigenous communities. [Read Transcript...]

Today we speak with Hope Flanagan (Seneca) a Native elder, a storyteller, teacher of plants and wild plant gathering. All through her life, Hope Flanagan shares stories of Native culture, traditions and connecting with nature, and all the healing and mystery it offers. For more than a decade, Hope Flanagan taught in an Ojibwe immersion classroom, and before that, she was a storyteller at Minneapolis Public Schools in drug and alcohol prevention. Now Hope works at Dream of Wild Health as a community outreach and culture teacher. [Read Transcript...]

February 14th marks a day of honoring relatives lost in the ongoing epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIWR).
A recent report from the Minnesota Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women reveals a heartbreaking statistic: while Indigenous people make up just 1% of the state's population, a stunning 9% of all murdered girls and women in Minnesota over the last ten years, were American Indian.

Today we talk with Jessica Gidagaakoons Smith (Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe), who is a mother, survivor, Two-Spirit warrior, Indigenous scholar, and researcher, MMIWG2S Legal Advocate, and so much more. Jessica shares how her own experience seeking healing as a survivor of domestic violence and human trafficking, led her on a path to become a national speaker, leader, and advocate for others.

We hear Jessica’s powerful story of how her “Inner Warrior” pushed her to step forward and speak up, sharing her own story of survival, to advocate for legislation aimed at strengthening law enforcement’s ability to track and solve cases of murdered or missing Native Americans.
[Read Transcript...]

This week, we continue our focus on how Indian Country in Minnesota is responding to the pandemic, now that COVID-19 vaccines are rolling out, with another Special Edition of Native Lights: Visiting Vaccines. In this show we check in with the Indian Health Service, we learn more about COVID resources, and we hear a firsthand account of going through the whole vaccination process from a Minneapolis firefighter. [Read Transcript...]