Amended Episode 6: Walking in Two Worlds

06/27/23 • 45 min

Amended, a podcast from our friends at Humanities New York, asks how we tell the story of the (unfinished) struggle for women’s voting rights. Who gave us the dominant suffrage narrative? And who gets left out?

When the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, a large number of Native American women still could not vote. The U.S. government did not recognize them as citizens. And if having U.S. citizenship required them to renounce tribal sovereignty, many Native women didn’t want it. But early-twentieth-century writer, composer, and activist Zitkála-Šá was determined to fight for both.

In this episode, host Laura Free speaks with digital artist Marlena Myles (Spirit Lake Dakota) whose art is inspired by Dakota imagery and history, and by Zitkála-Šá’s legacy. Dr. Cathleen Cahill, author of Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement, returns to help tell the story of Zitkála-Šá’s struggle for a “layered” U.S. citizenship that included the acknowledgment of Native American sovereignty.

This final episode of the Amended series demonstrates once again how those who have been marginalized within U.S. democracy have worked, and continue to work, to hold the nation accountable for its promise of liberty and equality for all.

Listen to Amended in full at https://humanitiesny.org/our-work/amended-podcast/ or in the Humanities New York feed wherever you listen.

And, later this year, join us for The Ohio Country, a forthcoming series from WYSO Public Radio and funded by Ohio Humanities. Native men and women from different tribes and their allies—plus teachers, artists, scholars, parents, landowners, foresters, young people, and historians, too—will tell their stories about the about the lands above the Ohio River, known as the Ohio Country. You can listen in this feed, at WYSO.org, ohiohumanities.org, and in all those other places where you get podcasts.

Listen to Amended in full at https://humanitiesny.org/our-work/amended-podcast/ or in the Humanities New York feed wherever you listen.

Previous Episode

Augmented Humanity: Indigenous A.I.

Augmented Humanity, a podcast from our friends at New Mexico Humanities, features modern explorers working at the intersection of technology and the humanities who help us to understand ourselves and the worlds we create in this digital age. They are thinkers, creators, makers, and academics, all working in diverse fields. Augmented Humanity is produced in partnership with KUNM FM, University of New Mexico's public radio station.

This episode’s guest is Michael Running Wolf (Northern Cheyenne, Lakota and Blackfeet), who was raised in a rural prairie village in Montana with intermittent water and electricity; naturally he has a Master’s of Science in Computer Science, is a former engineer for Amazon’s Alexa, and is an instructor at Northeastern University. He was raised with a grandmother who only spoke his tribal language, Cheyenne, which like many indigenous languages is near extinction. By leveraging his advanced degree and professional engineering experience, Michael hopes to strengthen the ecology of thought represented by indigenous languages.

Listen to Augmented Humanity in full at https://nmhumanities.org/podcast or wherever you listen.
And, later this year, join us for The Ohio Country, a forthcoming series from WYSO Public Radio and funded by Ohio Humanities. Native men and women from different tribes and their allies—plus teachers, artists, scholars, parents, landowners, foresters, young people, and historians, too—will tell their stories about the about the lands above the Ohio River, known as the Ohio Country. You can listen to the trailer now in this feed, at WYSO.org, ohiohumanities.org, and in all those other places where you get podcasts.

Next Episode

We Are Here Episode 6: The Lenape Come Home to Pennsylvania

We Are Here, a collaboration between our neighbors at PA Humanities and Keystone Edge, is a podcast about Pennsylvanians making their mark. This week, we’re thrilled to share the series’ sixth episode, “The Lenape Come Home to Pennsylvania.”

For thousands of years before the arrival of European settlers, the Lenape thrived in the Delaware Valley. Centuries of displacement followed, and now a repatriation project aims to heal old wounds. In this installment, We Are Here host Lee Stabert speaks with Jeremy Johnson, Cultural Education Director of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, and Doug Miller, site administrator of Pennsbury Manor historic site in Bucks County, about giving the tribe’s ancestral remains and artifacts a final resting place.

If you’d like to learn more about the history and legacy of the Lenape, visit delawaretribe.org, and to plan a visit to Pennsbury Manor, head over to their website.

Listen to We Are Here in full at https://www.keystoneedge.com/podcast/we-are-here, at pahumanities.org, or in the Keystone Edge feed wherever you listen.