![]() ![]() Kathryn used to bring home other student activists to stay the night, and used the parental home as an unofficial headquarters where activists prepared for the next day's demonstrations and confrontations with police - with the tacit consent of her parents. At the same time, her daughter Kathryn – at the time a university student - was deeply involved in the anti-war movement opposing the Vietnam War, which was conducted by the same President Johnson. In the 1960s, Harris, as the wife of a United States Senator, lived in Washington, D.C., and was in constant social and political contact with the top echelons of the Democratic Party, up to and including President Lyndon B. Representative to the OAS Inter-American Indigenous Institute, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). She was an original member of Global Tomorrow Coalition, the U.S. Harris helped the Taos Pueblo regain control of Blue Lake, and she helped the Menominee tribe gain federal recognition after their tribe had been terminated by the US federal government. As an advocate for women's rights, she was a founder of the National Women's Political Caucus. She was a founding member of Common Cause and the National Urban Coalition and is a spokesperson against poverty and social injustice. She has been appointed to many Presidential Commissions, including being recognized by Vice President Al Gore, in 1994, as a leader in the area of telecommunications in his remarks at the White House Tribal Summit. She helped found some of today's leading national Indian organizations including the National Indian Housing Council, Council of Energy Resource Tribes, National Tribal Environmental Council, and National Indian Business Association. From the 1970s to the present, she has presided over AIO, which works to advance the cultural, political and economic rights of Indigenous peoples in the U.S. She left NICO in 1970 and founded Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO). Harris taught the course herself for thirty years. With the support of President Johnson, Harris created the first Native American-education course, titled "Indian 101", to be required completion by all members of Congress. Harris's accomplishments and her impact on Native Americans, and appointed her to the National Council on Indian Opportunity (NICO). She founded the first intertribal organization in Oklahoma, titled the Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity (OIO), and became the first wife of a senator to testify before Congress to argue for continued funding to support indigenous tribal organizations. While residing in Washington, D.C., LaDonna Harris was able to accomplish many things with her new connections through her husband in the U.S. Senate, and the family, now with three children, relocated from Oklahoma to Washington, D.C. In 1964, Fred Harris was elected to the U.S. Ladonna supported Fred through college, and was very involved in his campaign for U.S. In 1949, shortly after graduating high school, she married Fred R. She learned English when she began attending public school. ![]() She speaks Comanche as her first language. She was raised traditionally by her maternal grandparents in a self-governing Indigenous community on a farm near the small town of Walters, Oklahoma. Harris was born Ladonna Vita Tabbytite, in Temple, Oklahoma, to Lilly Tabbytite ( Comanche) and Donald Crawford, a non-Native the couple separated shortly after her birth. In 2018, she became one of the inductees in the first induction ceremony held by the National Native American Hall of Fame. She was the first Native American woman to run for vice president. Harris was a vice presidential candidate for the Citizens Party in the 1980 United States presidential election alongside Barry Commoner. She is the founder and president of Americans for Indian Opportunity. LaDonna Vita Tabbytite Harris (born February 26, 1931) is a Comanche Native American social activist and politician from Oklahoma. ![]()
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