In Honduras, Defending Your Land Can Be Deadly

Amid Deepening Climate, Criminal, and Economic Crises, Indigenous Activists Are Being Murdered

On May 28, 2023, the body of Martín Morales Martínez was found floating in the Gama River in Triunfo de la Cruz, Honduras. Morales Martínez was Garifuna—a people descended from enslaved Africans, Arawak, and Carib Indians. He was also a respected land rights activist who devoted his life to fighting the theft of Garifuna coastal lands by corporations, investors, and state authorities. His was the most recent in a series of murders of Black and Indigenous land defenders in the country that show how violence, economic development, and race are …

by Christopher A. Loperena | April 3, 2024

Following in My Cherokee Great-Grandfather’s Footsteps

I Work With Tribes Across the Country to Honor Our Ancestors—And Ensure Our Survival

by Sheila Bird | September 18, 2023

I started working in repatriation efforts before I even knew what the term meant.

But repatriation—bringing our ancestors home—is in my blood. I grew up in a Cherokee community in Chewey, …

No, Ancient Egyptians Did Not Build a City in the Grand Canyon

Science Refutes Racist, Made-for-TV ‘Alternative Histories’ of Indigenous Americans

by Jennifer Raff | March 30, 2023

The histories of Indigenous peoples of the Americas are fascinating. Looking at the spectacular buildings of Machu Picchu, the walrus ivory carvings of the Canadian Arctic, and the effigy stone …

The Slideshow That Kept Oil Drills Out of the Arctic National Refuge

The Last Great Wilderness Helped Earn a Grassroots Victory for Indigenous Rights and Environmental Justice

by Finis Dunaway | February 22, 2023

The story seems impossible to believe: A low-budget traveling slideshow kept oil drills out of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But Indigenous leaders from the Arctic, environmental advocates on Capitol …

Surfing the Tides of History in Northern Chumash Land

White Men Have Long Dominated the Sport I Love—But the Status Quo Isn’t Set in Stone

by Maya Weeks | August 9, 2022

For health reasons I have to stay out of the water for the next couple weeks so I am dreaming about surfing, thinking about surfing, writing about surfing, doing everything …

When Alaskan and Russian Native People Thawed the Cold War’s ‘Ice Curtain’

Citizen-Diplomats on Both Sides of the Bering Strait Eased U.S.-Soviet Relations—and Could Help Confront Climate Change

By David Ramseur | December 8, 2017

As the Russian city of Provideniya’s deteriorating concrete buildings came into view below, Darlene Pungowiyi Orr felt uneasy. So did the other 81 passengers landing in that isolated far-eastern Soviet …

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