Publick Occurrences
March 18, 2024
Rhonda Anderson is Iñupiaq – Athabascan from Alaska. Her Native enrollment village is Kaktovik. Her life work most importantly is as a Mother, as well as a classically trained Herbalist, Silversmith, and activist. She works as an educator within area schools and the 5 colleges near her home in Massachusetts. Rhonda has sat on several Indigenous panels and roundtables to discuss how to implement the Hyde Amendment within all IHS institutions across the United States, how to better educate Native students in Massachusetts, issues regarding Native teen drug and alcohol use, land acknowledgments, land back movement, Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, and reproductive rights. Her activism ranges from removal of mascots, Water Protector, Indigenous identity, and protecting her traditional homelands in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from extractive industry.“Vital. Vibrant. Visible: Indigenous Identity Through Portraiture” is an ongoing collection and exhibit of portraits of native peoples of New England, curated by Rhonda, to bring awareness to contemporary Indigenous identity. Rhonda has been recognized for her work by the Massachusetts State Senate and The Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women as a 2021 Commonwealth Heroine and is the recipient of the 2022 Berkshire County NAACP Freedom Fund award.
She is Western Massachusetts Commissioner on Indian Affairs, founder and Co-Director of the Ohketeau Cultural Center and the Native Youth Empowerment Foundation, and a member of the Advisory Council for the New England Foundation for the Arts. Rhonda is also representing Ohketeau as a Woodlands Partnership of Northwest Massachusetts Board Member, and has been appointed by the governor to sit on the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Governing Board.
Larry Spotted Crow Mann is a nationally acclaimed author, and citizen of the Nipmuc Tribe of Massachusetts. He is an award winning writer, poet, cultural educator, Traditional Story Teller, tribal drummer/dancer and motivational speaker involving youth sobriety, cultural and environmental awareness. He has served as a board member of the Nipmuk Cultural Preservation, which is an organization set up to promote the cultural, social and spiritual needs of Nipmuc people as well as an educational resource of Native American studies. Mann also serves as a Review Committee Member, at The Native American Poets Project at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology. He travels throughout the United States, Canada and parts of Europe to schools, colleges, pow wows and other organizations sharing the music, culture and history of Nipmuc people. He has also given lectures at universities throughout New England on issues ranging from Native American Sovereignty to Identity.
He is a founder and Co-Director of the Ohketeau Cultural Center and the Native Youth Empowerment Foundation. He is also the first Native American to sing the opening honor song and land acknowledgement at the 2021 Boston Marathon starting line, and the recipient of the 2021 Indigenous Peoples Award of the Berkshire County Branch of the NAACP.
In their upcoming keynote, they will discuss issues important to them, especially at Ohketeau. Larry Spotted Crow Mann will discuss the history of the Nipmuc tribe, whose land we will be on for this year’s conference.
Conference registration goes live soon! Check back here or keep an eye out for the announcement via our email list.
