80 Native leaders and organizers working to get out the vote!

We brought 80 Native leaders and organizers from 24 different communities to Detroit for a Know Your Rights and Civic Engagement training to learn and unite for our communities.  

Our Native partner organizations and leaders have been practicing traditional relational organizing from Alaska to North Dakota to North Carolina to the Navajo Reservation, holding conversations with 1,500 of their neighbors and relatives as part of our Seven Generations Community Survey project. We covered the cost of lodging, food, and travel for participants from across Turtle Island. And we’re continuing to support organizing on the ground with paid NOA Organizing Fellows who will work with Tribes and partner organizations on non-partisan civic engagement through Election Day and beyond.

At the training, we shared our collective history of organizing for voting rights. We learned skills for maintaining a peaceful atmosphere at the polls and to prepare to respond to forms of voter suppression — including de-escalating potential conflicts.

This work is powerful. Ensuring the safety of our communities when they vote, protecting air, water, land, and sacred places is not a small task. It’s a mission with meaning and purpose in honor of our ancestors, our relatives, and generations to come. 

It’s also spiritually uplifting. It’s rewarding. The sense of empowerment is contagious. Everyone is a teacher and an organizer. 

The photos and testimonies from some of the 80 Native leaders and organizers who came to Detroit for our recent Voting rights training speak for themselves. 

“My priority ballot issue is to encourage our Two-Spirit and Native LGBTQ+ community members to be part of the voting process, to ensure they have a plan… to make informed decisions… Being able to be engaged in this way is really important.” – Elton Naswood, Diné,LGBTQ2S Center for Equity

“I think it’s really valuable work… representation does matter, to have my children see me in these types of roles and that I make my time and space valuable.”  – Blaine Parce, Assiniboine and Sioux of the Fort Peck Tribe

“It was so cool to meet other Native people across the country doing the same work.” – Kaia Aiello, White Mountain Apache, Arizona Native Vote

“This election is very important for Crow Country. We really hope to get more Native Americans in office… everything sacred is on the ballot.” – David Blaine, Crow Nation