(1887-1953)
James (Jim) Francis Thorpe was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe became the first Native American to win a gold medal for the United States.
(1996-present)
Neilson Powless is a Oneida cyclist who has won over 10 races between 2016-2022. He is most famous for being the first Native American to compete in the Tour de France in 2021.
(1997-present)
Madison Hammond is a Navajo and San Felipe Pueblo soccer player who was the first Native American to play on the National Women’s Soccer League.
(1997-present)
Abby Roque is a Wahnapitae First Nation ice hockey player who became the first Indigenous person to play for the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team in 2022.
- Team USA
(1925–2013)
Born Elizabeth Marie Tall Chief to an Osage Nation father, she earned international fame as a ballerina. She joined the New York City Ballet and George Balanchine created several roles for her, including The Firebird and the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, until her retirement in 1965. Soon after, she founded the Chicago City Ballet and remained its artistic director for many years. She was an adviser in the Chicago dance schools and continued to astound future dancers with her always-ahead-of-her-skill abilities for several years.
- Encyclopedia of the American Indian in the Twentieth Century, Credo Reference
(1948-present)
Leslie Marmon Silko is an acclaimed novelist, poet, and essayist who is known for her lyric treatment of Native American subjects. Born in 1948, Marmon Silko is of Laguna Pueblo, Mexican and Anglo-American heritage. Growing up on the edge of the Laguna Pueblo reservation, Marmon Silko’s earliest experiences were positioned between cultures. Silko received wide and substantial critical attention for her first novel Ceremony (1977). After the publication of Ceremony in 1977, Silko received greater recognition for her earlier work, including the exemplary short stories "Lullaby," "Yellow Woman," and "Tony's Story."
(1946-2021)
Janet Campbell Hale, a Native American author whose writings often blend personal memoir with stories of her ancestors. Hale, whose father was a member of the Coeur d’Alene tribe and whose mother was of Kutenai and Irish heritage, was raised on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation in Idaho and the Yakima Reservation in Washington. Hale’s first published work appeared in 1972 in an anthology of poems by young Native American writers. She then published her first novel, The Owl’s Song (1974); the book of poems Custer Lives in Humboldt County & Other Poems (1978); and the novel The Jailing of Cecelia Capture (1985), her master’s thesis, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
(1933-2005)
Vine Deloria, Jr., a lawyer and theologian, known to many as the leading American Indian intellectual of the 20th century. Deloria, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, was born in 1933 in Martin, South Dakota, near the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Deloria was a giant in the realm of American Indian policy. In 1969, Deloria published Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto , the first of more than 20 books he would write during his career. The book is considered one of the most prominent works ever written on American Indian affairs.
- Encyclopedia of the American Indian in the Twentieth Century, Credo Reference
(1939-2008)
Paula Gunn Allen who was a poet, novelist, and scholar was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her father was Lebanese and her mother identified as Laguna Pueblo and Scottish. While completing her doctorate, she published her first book of poetry, The Blind Lion (1974). Slowly reclaiming a part of her own heritage, Allen helped establish a Native American literary presence in the United States with several anthologies, including Spider Woman’s Granddaughters: Traditional Tales & Contemporary Writing by Native American Women (1989), Voice of the Turtle: American Indian Literature, 1900–1970 (1994), and Song of the Turtle: American Indian Literature, 1974–1994 (1996).
(1934-present)
N. Scott Momaday is a Kiowa novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist. He was born in Lawton, Oklahoma, to a father of Kiowa Indian heritage and a mother of European and Cherokee heritage. He spent much of his childhood on Navajo, Apache, and Jemez Pueblo reservations in the Southwest, where his parents taught. His first novel House Made of Dawn (1968) won a Pulitzer Prize and brought attention to Momaday as a leading figure in a Native American literary renaissance. His subsequent works include more than 13 books of poetry, plays, prose, and children’s stories.
- Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical Forms, Credo Reference
(1969-present)
Audra Simpson, a member of the Mohawk tribe, is a scholar and professor at Columbia University who focuses on the politics of recognition, specifically the Kahnawà:ke Mohawk struggles in keeping their legal and cultural rights. Her book, Mohawk Interrupts, was celebrated by Indigenous studies scholars as a critical addition to education on tribal community and national identity. As an anthropologist, a career in a field that is notorious for exploiting and thinking of Natives only in the past tense, Simpson pushes against these notions by centering on Native epistemologies
1865-1915
Susan La Flesche grew up on the Omaha reservation. During her childhood, she saw a white doctor refuse to treat an ailing American Indian woman. This spurred La Flesche to become a physician herself. In 1889, she was the first female Native American to earn a medical degree in the United States.
(1958-present)
A NASA astronaut and first Native American to walk in space. He has served as a member of the Astronaut Support Personnel team responsible for Shuttle launch preparations and post-landing operations. Herrington was a member of the sixteenth Shuttle mission to visit the International Space Station (November 23-December 7, 2002). Herrington honored his Chickasaw heritage during that walk by carrying six eagle feathers, a braid of sweet grass, two arrowheads and the Chickasaw nation’s flag.
(1907-1978)
Bertha Parker Pallan Cody is considered one of the first female Native American archaeologists. She is of Seneca heritage. She excavated at some of the sites with the oldest evidence of people on the continent. She was especially well-known for recording the names of the native people she talked to, and crediting them in her publications, even giving some of them co-authorship, a practice was that unusual at the time. In the 1950s, she and her husband, Iron Eyes Cody, hosted a television program explaining Indian history and folklore.
- Winds of Change, AISES: Advancing Indigenous People in STEM
(1953-present)
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a Native American botanist, author, and professor of Environmental and Forest Biology at SUNY. She is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF). She combines Western science with Indigeous environmental knowledge. Kimmerer has written numerous scientific articles and the books Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (2003), and Braiding Sweetgrass (2013).
(1960-present)
Deb Haaland, United States Secretary of the Interior, made history when she became the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary. She is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and a 35th generation New Mexican.
(1973-present)
Mary Peltola is the United States Representative for the state of Alaska. She is a former tribal court judge and previously served as the executive director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
(1939-2012)
Native American activist. Russell Means joined the American Indian Movement, a civil-rights group, and became (1970) its national director. Means organized a number of events aimed at drawing public attention to the inequities suffered by Native Americans and to the abrogation of their treaty rights. The best known of these was the 71-day armed occupation of Wounded Knee,South Dakota, in 1973. He later had a brief film acting career, playing Chingachgook in The Last of the Mohicans (1992), appearing in Natural Born Killers (1994), and voicing a character in Pocahontas (1995). He wrote a memoir, Where White Men Fear to Tread
(1979 - present)
Jason Momoa is a Native Hawaiian and Pawnee actor, known for works such as Aquaman, Game of Thrones, Dune, and others. He is very proud of his heritage, and has become involved in Native Hawaiian issues such as protesting the development of Mauna Kea, Hawaii's tallest mountain.
- 20 Famous Indigenous and Native Americans Making History in Fashion, Film and More
(1967- present)
Irene Bedard is a Cree and Iñupiaq actress. She is known for her roles in TV shows such as Westworld and film's such as The Tree of Life. One of her earliest roles was as the voice and physical model for the main character in Disney's Pocahontas
- 16 Famous Native American Actors, Politicians, and Artists Today
(1947-present)
Wesley Studi is a Cherokee actor known for roles in movies such as Dances with Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans. Recently, he has become a producer for the Netflix show Spirit Rangers, which follows the three Native American children who become park rangers with secret identities.
- 20 Famous Indigenous and Native Americans Making History in Fashion, Film and More
(1953-present)
Gil Birmingham is a Comanche actor who has worked in movies and television for decades. He is well known for his work in the Twilight movie series. His latest project is as Tribal Chairman Thomas Rainwater in the award-winning show Yellowstone.
- 20 Famous Indigenous and Native Americans Making History in Fashion, Film and More
(1954-present)
Graham Greene was born in Ohsweken on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario. Greene was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Dances with Wolves. He is known for his work on The Green Mile (1999), Wind River (2017) and Dances with Wolves (1990). He has been married to Hilary Blackmore since December 20, 1990.
- IMDB.com
(1936-2021)
Saginaw Grant (Sac-n-Fox, Iowa and Otoe-Missouria Nations) Grant was the quintessential Elder in Hollywood films, often playing the role of traditional dancer, motivational speaker, or tribe elder. He played Chief Big Bear in The Lone Ranger. Saginaw was the Hereditary Chief and a respected member of the Sac and Fox, Iowa and Otoe-Missouria Nations. He passed away on July 28, 2021.
- IMDB.com
(1977-present)
- NPR - Meet Raven Chacon, the first Native American to win the Pulitzer Prize for music
(1962-present)
Anthony Kiedis is the Mohican lead vocalist of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.
- 16 Famous Native American Actors, Politicians, and Artists Today
(1943-2023)
A prominent musician best known as the lead guitarist in the legendary rock group The Band. He performed with Bob Dylan, and Robertson wrote a number of songs that appeared on The Band's second album, including “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and “Up on Cripple Creek.” After The Band broke up in 1976, Robertson went on to a successful solo career, performed with an all-star band of Native American musicians, dubbed the Red Road Ensemble, on the soundtrack to the television documentary series The Native Americans, and collaborated with filmmaker Martin Scorsese, He continues to record and perform, and he was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in 2003. He has received numerous honors and in 2007 received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards in Canada.
- Encyclopedia of the American Indian in the Twentieth Century, Credo Reference
(1942-1970)
Jimi Hendrix was an influential guitarist and singer. He was an early adopter of the tone-altering effects of electric guitars, and popularized psychedelic music. His music career was only four years long, but he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. Hendrix's grandmother was Cherokee, and the family has lent several of his belongings to the National Museum of the American Indian.
- 16 Famous Native American Actors, Politicians, and Artists Today
(1965-present)
A Cree painter and installationist who focuses on issues of colonialism and systemic racism. His works reinterpret classic white Eurocentric works to center on Indigenous viewpoints.
- 16 Famous Native American Actors, Politicians, and Artists Today
Lauren Good Day is an award-winning Arikara, Hidatsa, Blackfeet and Plains Cree fiber artist who works in quillwork, ledger drawings, rawhide parfleche and clothing.
- 20 Famous Indigenous and Native Americans Making History in Fashion, Film and More
(1974-present)
Louie Gong is a Nooksack visual artist, activist, public speaker, educator. He is best known for his custom-drawn shoe art. His latest project, The Sasquatch Collection, in conjunction with Brooks Running and the Snoqualmie Tribe Ancestral Lands Movement, pays homage to Indigenous lands.
- 20 Famous Indigenous and Native Americans Making History in Fashion, Film and More
(1935-present)
Kay Walkingstick is a Cherokee landscape painter, known for incorporating native patterns or elements superimposed over her landscape scenes.
- 20 Famous Indigenous and Native Americans Making History in Fashion, Film and More
