Charmaine White Face

Charmaine White Face
Zumila Wobaga
Charmaine White Face presenting "America's Chernobyl" – the facts about the 3,272 abandoned open pit uranium mines in the Great Sioux Territory – on a 10-day tour on the East Coast, 2013
Oglala Tituwan elder
Personal details
BornDeadwood, SD
Awards2007 Nuclear Free Future Award, Salzburg, Austria
In April 2017, she received the 2017 Dakota Conference Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Preservation of the Cultural Heritage of the Northern Plains from the Center for Western Studies, Augustana University, Sioux Falls, SD.

Charmaine White Face, or Zumila Wobaga, is an Oglala Tetuwan (Lakota language speaker) from the Oceti Sakowin (Great Sioux Nation) in North America.

She is known for her work in support of Native American rights, in particular as coordinator of the Defenders of the Black Hills, a volunteer environmental organization centered on efforts to encourage the United States government to honor the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868.[1][2]

She also works at the international level in support of recognition of human rights of indigenous peoples all over the world. She is the spokesperson for the Sioux Nation Treaty Council established in 1894. She was a participant in the prayer fast/hunger strike held in December 2004 in Geneva, Switzerland at the final meeting of the Intersessional Working Group on the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (WGDD). She has worked to preserve Bear Butte,[3][4] on monitoring of abandoned uranium mines, on "environmental remediation of hazardous waste ponds,"[5] and in the anti-nuclear power movement.[6] In Jan. 2013, she raised concerns about radiation exposure of South Dakota Army National Guard soldiers in the Buffalo Gap National Grassland.[7]

Charmaine White Face is also a columnist and freelance writer who has written for Indian Country Today, the Rapid City Journal, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, and The Lakota Journal, and is a grandmother.[4][8]

  1. ^ Defenders of the Black Hills
  2. ^ "Interview with Charmaine White Face". Quiet Mountain Essays. VI (II). Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved March 27, 2013.
  3. ^ Charmaine White Face. "Sacred Bear Butte Threatened". Native Voice. Archived from the original on July 15, 2018. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  4. ^ a b Bommersbach, Jana (November 3, 2009). "Defender of the Black Hills : Charmaine White Face is helping protect a sacred Sioux landmark". True West, Preserving the American West. Retrieved March 27, 2013.
  5. ^ "Charmaine White Face and the Defenders of the Black Hills, 2007 Nuclear-Free Future Award Preisträger". Franz Moll Foundation. 2011. Archived from the original on April 10, 2012. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
  6. ^ Kulbokas, Maggie (February 22, 2013). "Charmaine White Face to walk, speak about a nuclear free future in Plymouth". Plymouth Daily News. Archived from the original on March 6, 2013. Retrieved March 27, 2013.
  7. ^ "Charmaine White Face: Deadly dose of uranium for soldiers". Indianz.Com. January 28, 2013. Archived from the original on February 1, 2013. Retrieved March 27, 2013.
  8. ^ "Dakota Wesleyan University Press Release". March 12, 2008. Archived from the original on June 4, 2010. Retrieved March 26, 2013.