Lynn Austin

Kathi Lynn Austin of the Conflict Awareness Project calls arms dealer Viktor Bout's sentencing lenient.

Tillie Black Bear is the Ex. Dir. and a founder (31 years ago) of the White Buffalo Calf Woman Society, Inc. (WBCWS) serving the Lakota Sioux Rosebud Reservation in Mission, SD She spoke to the Northern Michigan University 2008 Uniting Neighbors in the Experience of Diversity (UNITED) Conference on Sept. 23, 2008. With traditional sage burning, Black Bear sings as she and the crowd face the four directions - West, North, East, South and honor the Sky and Earth. Her visit was coordinated by the NMU Center for Native American Studies and the non-profit Turtle Island Project (TIP) in Munising, MI. The TIP has held several concerts and other events to raises funds for the WBCWS. TIP Dir. Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard travels several times a year to the Rosebud Reservation. Black Bear was greeted by Dr. Judith Puncochar, NMU Professor & an organizer of the annual UNITED Conference. Tillie Black Bear was introduced by Grace Chaillier, an NMU Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Center for Native American Studies and registered member of the Sicangu Lakota band of the Rosebud Sioux. Black Bear is a member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation/Rosebud Sioux Tribe and a leading expert on violence against women and children. She's a founding mother of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) and a founder of the South Dakota Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (SDCADV&SA). She's the first woman of color to chair NCADV and is on the SDCADV&SA Board of Directors. Black Bear is on the advisory board of National Sexual Assault Resource Center, Pennsylvania and a past member of the professional advisory board of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, Austin, TX. Black Bear received the 1988 U.S. Department of Justice award for work with crime victims and is one of President Bush s 1989 Points of Light . Black Bear is one of 10 people recognized as a founder of the domestic violence movement in the U.S. at the 1999 Millennium Conference on