Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ "is a longtime activist, university professor, and writer. In addition to numerous scholarly books and articles she has published a trilogy of historical memoirs, Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie (Verso, 1997), Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960–1975 (City Lights, 2002), and Blood on the Border: a Memoir of the Contra War (South End Press, 2005).

"Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma, daughter of a landless farmer and half-Indian mother. Her paternal grandfather, a white settler, farmer, and veterinarian, had been a labor activist and Socialist in Oklahoma with the Industrial Workers of the World in the first two decades of the twentieth century. The stories of her grandfather inspired her to lifelong social justice activism. She was a leading member of the Women's Liberation and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 1970s.  She worked with the American Indian Movement and continues to struggle for indigenous self-determination and land."


 * Advisory Board, Catalyst Project