Leading in Community, Rooted in Values with Judith Le Blanc
In this episode, Judith Le Blanc, a member of the Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma and the Executive Director of Native Organizers Alliance, joins us to discuss strategies and tactics for deep transformation.
An organizer of grassroots movements and Native sovereignty, Judith helps lead a powerful movement for structural reform and supports tribes and grassroots Native community groups.
We dive deep into the importance of finding wise elders and daily reflection practices as crucial steps in our journey towards justice and liberation. Judith sheds light on the power of grassroots organizing and collaboration with allies in elected/appointed positions to effect change and achieve tribal sovereignty.
Judith Le Blanc
Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma
Executive Director, Native Organizers Alliance
Judith Le Blanc is a member of the Caddo Nation and has an endless appetite for fry bread, an inter-tribal culinary delight! As the executive director of Native Organizers Alliance (NOA), she has learned many secrets to the art of good fry bread. She leads a national Native training and organizing network which supports tribes, traditional societies, and grassroots Native community groups in urban and tribal communities.
Judith is part of a growing circle of leaders in Indian Country who understand the necessity for an organized, durable ecosystem of Native leaders and organizers who lead with traditional values. NOA conducts learning circles, trainings, and strategic planning sessions to support Native leaders in organizing the grassroots movements for structural reforms, leading to Native sovereignty and racial equity for all.
Under Judith’s leadership, NOA has played a leading role in the galvanizing of the Native vote which turned out in record numbers in 2020. NOA co-led the effort to press for the nomination and confirmation of Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. The organizing effort generated tens of thousands voicing their public support to the Biden administration Transition committee and to the Senate including over two hundred letters from tribal governments.
In 2019, NOA co-initiated the first ever Native Presidential Candidates Forum in Iowa. Thirteen top tier candidates participated in the two day event which was attended by over five hundred tribal leaders, Native organizers, community and youth leaders who conducted the interviews of the candidates.
NOA also led efforts to protect the right to vote on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in 2018 after the North Dakota State Legislature attempted to restrict voting by requiring street addresses. On Indian Reservations street addresses are rare and people have always used post office boxes on their tribal identification cards.
Along with leading NOA, Judith has worked with the Brave Heart Society, a traditional Dakota women's society, and the Yankton Sioux Tribe on the Mni Wakan Wizipan. This is a groundbreaking project to re-establish the Yankton Sioux and other Oceti Sakowin tribes' inherent rights to co-steward the Missouri River bio-region.
Judith is chair of the board of NDN Collective and Common Defense . She is a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow and is currently a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School. She also serves on the advisory board for the Indigenous Earth Fund and Native Voices Rising.
Connect with Judith
nativeorganizing.org Instagram: @nativeorganizersalliance Facebook: facebook.com/NativeOrganizersAlliance Twitter: @NativeOrganizer
resources for the episode
Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together
Image descriptions: teal backgrounds, white and black text. A red leaf graphic in the left corner. A photo of an open journal, coffee cup and pine cones on a white desk in the right bottom corner.