LaNada War Jack

LaNada War Jack (born LaNada Vernae Boyer, 1947), also known as LaNada Boyer and LaNada Means, is an American writer and activist. She was the first Native American student admitted to the University of California at Berkeley in 1968. She led the drive to create the Native American Student Organization and became its chair. As a leader of the Third World Strike at UC Berkeley in 1969, she was arrested but succeeded in obtaining approval for the first ethnic studies courses to be included in the university's curricula. A few months later, she became one of the organizers of the Occupation of Alcatraz in 1969. After the occupation, she completed her bachelor's degree at the University of California, Berkeley and went on to study law at Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C. While in Washington, she participated in the takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs office in 1972.

Returning to Idaho in 1974, War Jack (then known as Boyer) was involved in tribal politics and served a two-year term on the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation of Idaho Tribal Council. In 1979, she moved to Nevada and operated a ranch near Wadsworth, gaining certification in permaculture from the Permaculture Institute at Tagari Garden Farm, near Sisters Creek, Tasmania. Along with her husband, Gus James, a Northern Paiute, she worked on preserving natural resources for American Indian use. When they divorced in the early 1990s, she returned to Idaho and earned a master's degree in public administration and a PhD in political science from Idaho State University. She served for three years as the Executive Director of the Shoshone Bannock Tribes. She has continued her activism on behalf of Native people and is a distinguished professor at Boise State University, teaching Native law and governance courses.