Convocation: Suzan Harjo

Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, Suzan Harjo is a poet, writer, lecturer, curator and policy advocate, who has helped Native Peoples recover more than one million acres of land. As president of The Morning Star Institute, a national Indian rights organization founded in 1984, she has taken the lead in the Native American sports team mascots controversy. She was also a founding trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian. In addition to having worked as news director of the American Indian Press Association, she is a columnist for Indian Country Today, the leading Native American newspaper. Her commentary and poetry are widely published. The title of her presentation was "Treaties and Other Promises: Words Matter and Keeping One's Word Matters More."