Montgomery fellow Deer discusses activist career
Ada Deer, this term's Montgomery fellow, explained that it was her mother's influence that led her to become an advocate for Native Americans in her Tuesday lecture, "Seeking Social Justice: Indians, Women and the Politics of Change." Deer, a feminist and a Native American activist, championed social change as chair of the Menominee tribe from 1974 to 1976, and later as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs under former President Bill Clinton. Deer, now 73, grew up on a reservation in Keshena, Wisconsin ,where she lived with her parents and four siblings in a log cabin with no indoor plumbing or electricity, she said. After she received a scholarship to attend college from her tribe in Wisconsin, Deer became the first Native American woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She later became the first Menominee to receive a master's degree when she graduated from the School of Social Work at Columbia University. "I decided I didn't want to be poor," she said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
