AMES, Iowa – An environmentalist and human rights activist who has worked for years to secure rights for Native Americans will discuss food security and environmental justice at Iowa State University.

Winona LaDuke will deliver the 2018 Richard Thompson Memorial Lecture at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 28, in the Memorial Union Great Hall. This lecture is free and open to the public.

LaDuke, an enrolled member of the Anishinaabe, has devoted her life to protecting the lands and ways of native communities. She lives on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota, where she established a national advocacy group, Honor the Earth, with non-native folk-rock duo the Indigo Girls. Honor the Earth encourages public support of and funding for native environmental groups, focusing on climate change, renewable energy, sustainable food systems and environmental justice.

LaDuke also founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation-based nonprofits in the country, to recover land for the Anishinaabe people.

She is a graduate of Harvard University and Antioch University, and has received numerous awards, including being inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. LaDuke was Ralph Nader’s vice-presidential candidate on the Green Party ticket in 1996 and 2000.

LaDuke has written extensively on Native American and environmental issues, including the 2017 book “The Winona LaDuke Chronicles: Stories from the Front Lines in the Battle for Environmental Justice,” as well as “The Militarization of Indian Country,” “Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming,” “Food is Medicine: Recovering Traditional Foods to Heal the People,” “The Winona LaDuke Reader” and “All Our Relations.” She has also written a novel, “Last Standing Woman,” and a children’s book, “The Sugar Bush.”

This lecture is co-sponsored by the American Indian studies program, Ames Public Library Friends Foundation, Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, sustainable agriculture graduate program, MFA program in creative writing and environment, Pearl Hogrefe Visiting Writer Series, Student Union Board, Thompson Memorial Lecture Fund, United Native American Student Association, University Library and the Committee on Lectures, which is funded by Student Government.

Find more information about ISU lectures online or by calling 515-294-9935.