Red Bird Red Power

<p><em>Red Bird Red Power</em> tells the story of one of the most influential—and controversial—American Indian activists of the twentieth century. Zitkala-Ša (1876–1938) also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin was a highly gifted writer editor and musician who dedicated her life to achieving justice for Native peoples. Here Tadeusz Lewandowski offers the first full-scale biography of the woman whose passionate commitment to improving the lives of her people propelled her to the forefront of Progressive-era reform movements.<br /><br />Lewandowski draws on a vast array of sources including previously unpublished letters and diaries to recount Zitkala-Ša’s unique life journey. Her story begins on the Dakota plains where she was born to a Yankton Sioux mother and a white father. Zitkala-Ša whose name translates as “Red Bird” in English left home at age eight to attend a Quaker boarding school eventually working as a teacher at Carlisle Indian Industrial School. By her early twenties she was the toast of East Coast literary society. Her short stories for the <em>Atlantic Monthly</em> (1900) are to this day the focus of scholarly analysis and debate. In collaboration with William F. Hanson she wrote the libretto and songs for the innovative <em>Sun Dance Opera </em>(1913).<br /> </p>