Join us for a new series of online discussions with activists about the lessons they have learned while working long-term with people who share their goals but not their identities. Our second event will be with the Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner and Louise Herne on Thursday, June 3rd from 6:30 to 7:45 PM (ET).

Register on Zoom at bit.ly/PMCJUST2

Our intention is to illuminate challenges and rewards of communicating with others across historically divided lines of identity:

• to grow self-awareness of implicit bias and assumptions;

• to acknowledge the vulnerability required to have deep conversations;

• to gain insight in ways of listening and working with silence;

• to recognize the power and benefit of our interconnectedness.

Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner

Awarded one of the first doctorates in the country for work in women’s studies (UC Santa Cruz) and a founder of one the first college-level women’s studies programs in the United States (CSU Sacramento), Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner has taught women’s studies courses for 50 years.  She currently serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Syracuse University Renée Crown University Honors Program. Dr. Wagner is the Founder and Executive Director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation and Center for Social Justice Dialogue in Fayetteville, New York.

A major historian of the suffrage movement, Dr. Wagner has been active on the national scene.  She appeared on the CNN Special Report: Women Represented and CNN’s Quest’s World of Wonder.  She has been quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post, Smithsonian, Nation and Time Magazine, among others.  Her recent articles appeared in the New York Daily News, Ms. Magazine, the National Women’s History Alliance newsletter and National Suffrage Centennial Commission blog. She appeared in and wrote the faculty guide for the Ken Burns’ documentary, “Not for Ourselves Alone.” 

A prolific author, Dr. Wagner’s anthology The Women's Suffrage Movement, with a Forward by Gloria Steinem (Penguin Classics, 2019), unfolds a new intersectional look at the 19th century woman’s rights movement.  Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists (Native Voices, 2001) documents the surprisingly unrecognized authority of Native women, who inspired the suffrage movement. It was followed by her young reader’s book, We Want Equal Rights: How Suffragists Were Influenced by Native American Women (Native Voices, 2020).

Among her awards, Dr. Wagner was selected as a 2020 New York State Senate Woman of Distinction, one of “21 Leaders for the 21st Century” by Women’s E-News in 2015 and she received the Katherine Coffey Award for outstanding service to museology from the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums in 2012. 

Wakerakatste Louise Herne

Wakerakatste (Wa-geh-lah-gats-the) Louise Herne is a condoled Bear Clan Mother for the Mohawk Nation Council. She is a trusted advisor for families and community youth and works closely with them in their homes and schools. She bestows traditional names in the longhouse and provides spiritual counsel for all those seeking support. Through her work as a matrilineal leader and as a mother, she is a founding member of Konon:kwe (Goh-noon-gwe) Council, a circle of Mohawk women working to reconstruct the power of their origins through education, empowerment and trauma-informed approaches. Louise champions the philosophy of Kahnistensera (Ga-nees-the-sa-lah), “Mother Law” — a natural law that binds Onkwehon:we(Uhn-gwe-hoo-weh), or Indigenous, kinship society. She is the lead conductor of the Moon Lodge Society, a convening women and girls on a monthly basis in line with the full moon cycle. Louise is the principal organizer and leader of Ohero:kon (Uh-ho-low-go), “Under the Husk”), a traditional Rite of Passage ceremony for Mohawk youth. Since 2005, she has guided hundreds of community families and volunteers through self-reflection and Haudenosaunee cultural instruction and ceremony. A former Spirit Aligned Legacy Leader, Louise has presented at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and lectures regularly at universities throughout Canada and the United States on Haudenosaunee philosophies and self-determination regarding women. Louise, affectionately known as Mama Bear, is the Distinguished Scholar in Indigenous Learning at McMaster University Institute for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching and Learning (MIIETL).