Published: November 17, 2008 11:39 am      

Dunbar-Ortiz, Morris speaking at ECU

Dr. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a long-time social justice activist, retired professor and writer, will present one of two Hayes Native American Studies Lectures in November at East Central University. She will discuss “Another Shade of Red: Oklahoma’s Radical Roots” at 7 p.m. Wednesday [NOV. 19] in the Estep Multimedia Center in the University Center.

Dr. Traci Morris, a programming specialist for the Arizona Commission of Indian Affairs, will discuss “The ‘Art’ of PostIndian Semiotic Warfare: The work of Cherokee Artist Kade Twist” at 7 p.m. Nov. 24 [MONDAY] in the Estep Multimedia Center in the University Center.

Both lectures are free and open to the public.

Dunbar-Ortiz wrote about her life and the joys and ordeals of growing up poor in rural Oklahoma during the 1940s and 1950s in her book “Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie.” Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the lecture.

Dunbar-Ortiz has said that the stories of her grandfather, who had been a labor activist and Socialist in Oklahoma with the Industrial Workers of the World early in the 20th century, inspired her to lifelong social justice activism.

She moved to San Francisco at 18, majored in history at San Francisco State College and received master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles. She was a full-time activist across the United States from 1967 to 1972, also traveling to Europe, Mexico and Cuba. Her book, “Outlaw Woman: Memoir of the War Years,” tells of her life from 1960 to 1975.

She became active in the American Indian Movement and the International Indian Treaty Council in 1974. She began teaching in a new Native American Studies program at California State University at Hayward and helped develop the Department of Ethnic Studies as well as Women’s Studies, retiring after 32 years.

Her other books include “The Great Sioux Nation: An Oral History of the Sioux Nation and its Struggle for Sovereignty,” “Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico, 1680-1980,” “Indians of the Americas: Human Rights and Self-Determination” and “Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra War.”

She was the founder and director from 1985 to 2005 of the Indigenous World Association, a non-governmental organization with consultative status in the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

Dr. Traci Morris, the project specialist at the Arizona Commission of Indian Affairs, also teaches courses in the Department of American Indian Studies at Arizona State University.

Morris’ research focus is on the study of representations of native peoples and the relationship to power that this study implies. She has explored representations of native peoples in art, movies, gender, academia, museums, popular culture and visual culture.

She has a doctorate in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona and eight years of undergraduate teaching experience at the University of Phoenix On-Line, Pima Community College, the University of Arizona and Arizona State University.

Morris also has worked for several museums and galleries, including internships at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian at the George Gustave Heye Center in lower Manhattan and the Arizona State Museum.

She has been a manager and buyer for Tucson’s oldest Native American art gallery, Bahti Indian Arts, and is a volunteer for the Pueblo Grande Museum and the Phoenix Indian Center.