Suzan Shown Harjo

At-a-Glance

Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor (2014).
Serves as President and Executive Director of The Morning Star Institute since 1984.
Helped Native peoples recover more than one million acres of tribal lands.
Guest Curator and Editor for an exhibition and book at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (2003-2017).
Columnist for Indian Country Today since 1989.
Co-produced "Seeing Red," the first Indigenous news show in the United States, on WBAI radio in the mid-1960s.
Elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2022.

Biography

Suzan Shown Harjo, a Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee advocate, poet, writer, lecturer, and curator, is a prominent voice for Native American rights. Since 1984, she has served as President and Executive Director of The Morning Star Institute, a national Indigenous Peoples organization dedicated to promoting and protecting traditional and cultural rights through research, writing, curating, training, policy development, and stereotype-busting.