Guide to Source Material for Anti-Racist Activists and Thinkers

Red Bird, Red Power tells the story of one of the most influential--and controversial--indigenous activists of the twentieth century. Zitkala-Sa (1876-1938), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was a highly gifted writer, editor, and musician who dedicated her life to achieving justice for Native peoples. Here, Tadeusz Lewandowski offers the first full-scale biography of the woman whose passionate commitment to improving the lives of her people propelled her to the forefront of Progressive-era reform movements. Lewandowski draws on a vast array of sources, including previously unpublished letters and diaries, to recount Zitkala-Sa's unique life journey. In Red Bird, Red Power she emerges as a multifaceted human being whose work entailed constant negotiation and whose achievements, according to Lewandowski, distinguish her as a forerunner of the Red Power movement and an important agent of change.

Zitkala-Sa (Red Bird) (1876-1938), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was one of the best-known and most influential Native Americans of the twentieth century. Born on the Yankton Sioux Reservation, she remained true to her indigenous heritage as a student at the Boston Conservatory and a teacher at the Carlisle Indian School, as an activist in turn attacking the Carlisle School, as an artist celebrating Native stories and myths, and as an active member of the Society of American Indians in Washington DC. All these currents of Zitkala-Sa's rich life come together in Dreams and Thunder: Stories, Poems, and The Sun Dance Opera, which presents fourteen stories, five rare poems, and the libretto of The Sun Dance Opera with contextualizing commentary from the editor P. Jane Hafen.

(The hyperlink of the title leads to a copy of the text on archive.org/.)
Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin) was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition. Due to her early life on the Yankton Reservation and subsequent education on Quaker boarding schools and colleges, she was in the poignant but creative position of trying to bridge the gap between her own culture and the dominant white one, unable to return fully to the former or to enter fully into the latter. These pieces, largely autobiographical, were first collected and published in 1921. Seven of the ten pieces are reprints from Zitkala-Sa's publications in Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Magazine, and Everybody's Magazine in 1900 and 1902. The final piece is a report titled "America's Indian Problem."

(The hyperlink of the title links to a copy of the book available at archive.org/.)
Old Indian Legends is a collection of Dakota stories retold by the Yankton Dakota writer Zitkala-Sa and published in 1901. There are fourteen stories in total and in the preface of the book Zitkala-Sa notes that she "tried to transplat the native spirit of these tales---root and all---into the English language, since America in the last few centuries has acquired a second tongue."