Chief Leonard George
Chief Leonard George is the primary leader and elected chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation (which translates as “people of the inlet”) in Burrard Inlet, British Columbia, native territories. A Coast Salish Aboriginal American, George is a lecturer, humorist, film and script consultant, and actor in such films as Americathon, Shadow of the Hawk, White Fang, and Little Big Man. He is also a traditional native singer and dancer. He worked for seven years as executive director of the Vancouver Aboriginal Centre, which provided support for urban Native Americans. He now works for TAKaya Developments.
Phil Lane Jr.
Phil Lane Jr., a member of the Yankton Sioux and Chickasaw tribes, has worked for the past twenty-eight years with indigenous people in North and South America, Micronesia, Thailand, Hawaii, and Africa. Founder of the Four Worlds Development Project at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, where he worked for fifteen years, Lane is now president of the independent Four Worlds International Institute, which promotes sustainable, spiritually based economic and community development. He received the 1992 Windstar Award for his work, as well as the 2000 Foundation for Freedom and Human Rights Award in Berne, Switzerland.
Ingrid Washinawatok el-Issa
Born in 1957 into the Menominee Nation in Wisconsin, Ingrid Washinawatok el-Issa, O’Peqtaw-Metamoh (Flying Eagle Woman), worked with many organizations to promote indigenous people’s cultures and rights. As executive director of the Fund for Four Directions in New York City, she worked in particular to revitalize indigenous languages. Washinawatok was one of three Americans kidnapped and executed in the remote highlands of Colombia by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, while on a mission to help the U’wa tribe set up a school system in February 1999. She is survived by her husband, Ali el-Issa, and her son, Maeh-kiw-kasic.
Rigoberta Menchú Tum
After losing her mother and brother to Guatemalan death squads in the late 1970s and her father to a fire, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, a Quichè Mayan Indian, followed in her father’s footsteps in protesting human rights abuses against Guatemala’s indigenous peasants by the country’s repressive military government. In 1981, Menchú fled to Mexico and joined the international fight to stop the brutal repression of Guatemalan Indian peasants. A leading proponent of indigenous people’s rights everywhere, Menchú Tum is the author of I Rigoberta Menchú and the recipient of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize for her work toward reconciliation.