Lakota attorney to deliver keynote address during First Generation Week
CHADRON – Elaine Yellow Horse, a native of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, will be present a keynote speech, Rooted in Resilience, at Chadron State College Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 7 p.m. in the Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center as part of First Generation Week activities Nov. 8-14. First Generation Day was established in 1965 to celebrate those who are first in their families to earn a four-year degree.
First Generation Week events will include a First Gen Meet and Greet Monday, Nov. 9, at 8 a.m. in the Student Center Lobby. On Wednesday, Nov. 11, first generation students are invited to stop by the Student Center from 10:30 a.m. to noon to receive a sticker or button. Thursday, Nov. 12, at 11 a.m. in the Student Center, first-generation students are invited to attend a session to learn more about the benefits of completing a CSC internship.
When Elaine Yellow Horse was a child, her mother told her that her generation, the seventh to live on reservations, was meant to save their people. But Yellow Horse, a youngster running around with her siblings, said she could never have imagined how that responsibility would take shape in her life.
Raised just feet from where the Wounded Knee massacre took place, Yellow Horse figured if she ever landed in a courtroom, it would be as a defendant.
After studying tribal law in college, however, she took a job in the prosecutor’s office, partially because she needed the cash, and partially because criminal justice careers looked exciting on TV. Through her legal work, Yellow Horse ultimately came to better understand her tribe’s history, how it affects people today, and how to draw from Lakota traditions to make the courts more compassionate and more effective. Along the way, she brought a notorious, prolific criminal, a white pediatrician working in the federally run Indian Health Service, to justice.
Category: Project Strive