Zitkala-Ša

Lakota writer and activist advocating for Native American rights and cultural preservation.

Zitkala-Ša (1876–1938), born Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was a Lakota Sioux writer and political activist who challenged U.S. policies eroding Indigenous sovereignty. Orphaned at age 8, she was forcibly enrolled in a Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where her resistance to cultural assimilation inspired her lifelong activism. She became the first Native American woman to publish an autobiographical account of boarding school experiences in her 1900 work '《American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings》'.

As editor of the 《The Sun Dance》' preserved Lakota rituals facing extinction.

Zitkala-Ša's 1938 report '《American Indian Education and the Indian Office》' revealed systemic abuses in federal schools, influencing the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. The Zitkala-Ša Foundation now preserves her archives documenting Indigenous resistance movements.