Original upload date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT
Archive date: Thu, 16 Dec 2021 01:51:00 GMT
2014 Medal of Honor Recipient: Patricia Locke
Born on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, Locke was a Standing Rock Sioux, Hunkpapa band also known as Lakota, and Mississippi Band of White EarthChippew
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a. She was the daughter of John and Eva (Flying Earth) McGillis; they lived for a time in Parker, Arizona. Her father worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1951. She taught at University of California, Los Angeles, San Francisco State University, Alaska Methodist University, the University of Colorado, and the University of Southern Maine.
Patricia Locke was an advocate for tribal rights and a leader in the promotion of American Indian self-determination and education. Locke advanced educational opportunities for the American Indian
Nations and for minorities in the United States, both through advocacy and in the development of innovative educational policies. She had tribal affiliations with the Standing Rock Sioux-Hunkpapa Lakota and the White Earth Chippewa-Mississippi Band and worked directly with seventeen tribes, supporting their efforts to establish colleges on their reservations. In her writings, Locke elucidates American Indian values and belief systems, education, native languages, and culture. A defender of indigenous rights, she promoted the preservation of native cultures and languages in the Western Hemisphere.
She was appointed to the Interior Department Task Force on Indian Education Policy. She worked for the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978. Patricia lived on the Standing Rock Reservation to be near her son and daughter, Kevin and Winona Flying Earth. She joined the Baha'i Faith as an adult and was elected to the Baha'i National Spiritual Assembly of the United States. Pat Locke died in Phoenix, Arizona. Her oral history is held at the Library of Congress.She was named posthumously to the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.