This piece began as a random sketch many years before I met its namesake, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard. While it doesn’t closely resemble her, I began calling the picture “LaDonna” after hearing her speak, and the name stuck.
LaDonna, also known as Tamakawastewin, was born in North Dakota in 1956. Throughout her life, she was a Lakota historian, activist, and water protector. She studied history at the University of North Dakota and worked as a cultural resource planner, helping to establish the Standing Rock Tribal Historic Preservation and Tourism Offices. Her work focused on preserving sacred sites and documenting Indigenous genealogy and narratives. She also represented Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations and contributed to exhibitions and documentaries.
LaDonna is best known for founding the Sacred Stone Camp, the first resistance camp against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. Her advocacy ignited a historic, Indigenous-led movement to protect water and sacred lands.
I first met LaDonna in Tamera, Portugal. At the time, I was an insecure teenager who ended up attending the workshops that would later become the Defend the Sacred Alliance—mostly because I had nowhere else to go. LaDonna struck me immediately. She spoke with remarkable clarity, cutting through conversations with a single sentence. She was eloquent when speaking about love, purpose, resistance, and pain, and I was often moved to tears.
LaDonna passed away from cancer in 2021, at her home in North Dakota.
To me, she represents grace and dignity in the face of despair and destruction—balancing oceans of patience with a no-nonsense attitude and forever holding onto a steadfast sense of what is right.
Acrylic on paper
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