In 1993, we proudly co-founded Honor the Earth with Winona LaDuke. Our board was seeded with activists from across Indian Country, especially drawing from the Indigenous Women's Network, Indigenous Environmental Network and Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples. This activist, working board gave Honor the Earth the knowledge base, the heart and the experience it needed to fulfill its mission statement: To create awareness and support for Indigenous environmental issues and to leverage needed financial and political resources for the survival of sustainable Indigenous communities. And to develop these resources by using music, the arts, media and Indigenous wisdom to ask people to recognize our joint dependency on the Earth and be a voice for those who are not heard.
Indigo Girls’ part of this mission was to help actualize Honor the Earth tours and journeys for musical and political organizing exchanges with Indigenous communities across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Along the way, we were mentored by many Indigenous led grassroots groups that make up the ecosystem of Honor the Earth, and for decades have counted Honor the Earth as one of the most central threads in our collective lives, a thread that held together our spirits, our art and our humanity.
While we have served on the Board of Directors during significant transition periods when called upon, our joint intention was always for Honor the Earth to be fully Indigenous-led. We aimed to support the organization by helping to raise funds and awareness, and by participating in collaborative organizing efforts with Indigenous community activists when invited.
We are grateful that through all of the collective efforts, Honor the Earth has been able to grant more than two million dollars to more than 200 Native American communities, and has been able to participate in many significant projects and resistance efforts over the past 30 years.
Honor the Earth has also experienced significant challenges. We are grateful to Krystal Two Bulls for leading the organization back to stability after its recent leadership crisis. With the new leadership, a shift in the mission and direction of Honor the Earth will now begin, including the organization’s re-establishment of a powerful fully Indigenous Board. As a result, we have mutually decided that our direct involvement in the organization will come to an end.
We will continue our activism as allies to Indigenous led movements and are truly energized by the many incredible Indigenous activists we are supporting and learning from.
Our time with Honor the Earth has been a profound honor.
