Linda black elk biography
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Linda Black Elk remembers with deep fondness the walks she would take with her mother and grandmother, who taught her all about plants and the nation. She learned to name the edible and medicinal plants around her—yarrow, pawpaw, pokeweed—and the various ways they would interact with local animals and the greater ecosystem. Over time, Black Elk worked to develop closer relationships with her “plant relatives.” To this day, she works hard to be a good relative and maintain these important relationships.
With her diverse mix of Korean, Mongolian, and Catawba ancestry, Black Elk grew up in the Ohio Valley before settling in Oceti Sakowin territory, where her husband and children are members of the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Lakota Nations.
This varied background has afforded Black Elk the privilege of learning from elders and other knowledge holders on Standing Rock and beyond, and it is these experiences that she brings to her work as Food Sovereignty Coordinator at United Tribe
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natifs.org WELCOMES LINDA BLACK ELK AS EDUCATION DIRECTOR
MINNEAPOLIS — August 03, 2023 — Minneapolis non-profit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NATIFS) announces ethnobotanist and food sovereignty activist Linda Black Elk has joined as educational programming and community engagement leader. Black Elk was previously food sovereignty coordinator at United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, ND, and is widely published on the topic of food sovereignty.
Black Elk will lead educational program development and strategic planning as well as supervise and support the education and community engagement grupp. She will oversee curriculum planning and development for the Indigenous Food Lab professional Indigenous kitchen and training center, studio kitchen and classroom, and develop and lead community engagement activities and programs.
“I am overjoyed to be joining the NATIFS team— inom feel much of my work over 25 years in Indigenous education has led to this. My l
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About Linda
Linda Black Elk is an ethnobotanist and food sovereignty activist specializing in teaching about culturally important plants and their uses as food and medicine. She is eternally grateful for the intergenerational knowledge of elders and other knowledge holders, who have shared their understandings of the world with her, and she has dedicated her life to giving back to these peoples and their communities. Linda works to build ways of thinking that will promote and protect food sovereignty, traditional plant knowledge, and environmental quality as an extension of the fight against hydraulic fracturing and the fossil fuels industry. Linda and her family have also been spearheading a grassroots effort to provide organic, traditional, shelf stable food and traditional Indigenous medicines to elders and others in need. She has written numerous articles, book chapters, and papers, and is the author of “Watoto Unyutapi”, a field guide to edible wild plants of the Dakota people