Indigenous Peoples Day Convergence 2021

Greater Cincinnati Native American Coalition

This year’s Convergence brings together global Indigenous leaders and change makers to offer healing through story sharing and solidarity.

This year’s Convergence focuses on International Indigenous Solidarity. Our goal is to celebrate the resilience of Indigenous peoples worldwide. Indigenous leaders and facilitators will lead workshops on various topics including Indigenous sovereignty, land and water rights, education, religious freedom, resistance movements, and more. <a href="https://www.bonfire.com/store/gcnacoalition/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Get your merch and support our work here.</a>Speakers

Gary Farmer is a Canadian actor and musician. Farmer was born in Ohsweken, Ontario into the Cayuga Nation and Wolf Clan of the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois Confederacy. He is perhaps best known for his role as Nobody in the films Dead Man (1995) and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), and for his role in Smoke Signals (1998). In his career spanning over three decades, Farmer received three Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male nominations. He is widely recognized as a pioneer in the development of First Nations media in Canada and is the founding director of an urban Indian radio network, Aboriginal Voices Radio Network. He has most recently been noted for his role as Uncle Brownie in the hit FX series Reservation Dogs.

Irene Bedard (she/her/hers) is of Inupiat and Metis heritage and is enrolled in the Native Village of Koyuk. She has played many American Indian characters in a variety of television shows and films. She is best known for her voice role as the title character in the Disney animated film "Pocahontas," and the cult-classic "Smoke Signals" as Suzy Song. Irene has always used her platform to advocate for Native people. In the past she has done work around Murdered and Missing Indigenous Relatives and to protect the sacred lands. Irene now serves as a board member for GCNAC. Irene will be speaking on the Indian Boarding School system.

Shepherd Tsosie is Diné, 4th gender, from Arizona, and a survivor of Western academia. They live and work in North Carolina with their wife and cats. Their recent work interrogates power in library and archives, and via this interrogation they seek ways to queer/decolonize/Indigenize spaces of learning and inquiry. Last year Shepherd spoke on Indigenizing your reading list, this year we are excited to hear from them about archival records and their own journey to "find" Indigenous knowledge about their gender identity.

Tala Mohammad Ali is the daughter of a Jordanian father and a Palestinian mother who was ethnically cleaned from her homeland at the age of 13. She has lived most of her life in Cincinnati--OH, where she currently works at the Dorothy Day Center for Faith &amp; Justice at Xavier Univresity. It is there that she serves as the Muslim Chaplain and Assistant Director of Interfaith Program, and where she also facilitates service and justice immersion programming. She also sits on the governing Board of the Islamic Association of Cincinnati, Clifton Mosque. She has organized and served in justice based movements for most of her life. Tala has been an active organizer in the movements against the invasion and occupation of Iraq (2003), for Palestinian rights and liberation, as well as for the rights, lives and liberation of Black and Indigenous peoples. She has intentionally worked to highlight the parallels between these movements and building for solidarity along the way. Tala sees herself as a daughter of indigenous resistance, displacement, resilience, and survival. She stands in solidarity with all peoples struggling for liberation.

Dawn Knickerbocker (She/Her/Hers/Kwe) belongs to the Anishinaabe people, is a citizen of White Earth Nation/ gaa waabaabiganikaag, enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe from the Ottertail Pillager Band of Indians.  Having spent over 20 years of her work life as a grassroots organizer on the front lines of earth-related matters Dawn is an activist, advocate, organizational strategist, and a leader in the philanthropic sector working as the Vice President of External Engagement for Native Americans in Philanthropy. Dawn spent the majority of her career working in nonprofit leadership and in practice of reciprocity within philanthropy. She worked as a grant-maker in Washington State when she designed and implemented grant funding for the arts: Spokane Arts Grant Awards (SAGA). Dawn is the former elected Chair of the Advisory Commission on Diversity for the most diverse city in the State of Washington, Renton. She now serves as the board president of the Greater Cincinnati Native American Coalition and a co-leader at Yellow Springs Climate Action. She is a published nonfiction writer, poet, public speaker, columnist, and the 2020 Martin Luther King Drum Major for Justice Award recipient. She resides on the traditional homelands of the Shawnee and Miami Nations in Yellow Springs Ohio with her husband and four sons. Dawn will be speaking on Native Land and the Ohio Native Land Initiative.

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Indigenous Peoples Day Convergence 2021

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