THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Marie Elena Brady Sanchez

April 30, 1939 – August 9, 2019

“If there is to be an Indian presence in this land, there must be Indian people. We are almost an endangered species and need protection against medical extermination.” –  Marie Sanchez and Dr. Connie Uri of American Indian Health Professionals Inc., 1978

Lifelong advocate for indigenous people’s rights and for the Cheyenne language. Chief Judge of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Montana and a teacher at Montana State University and at Chief Dull Knife College. Linguist and a contributor to the Cheyenne Dictionary by Wayne Leman. Active member of the International Indian Treaty Council, National Organization for Women and the Elk Horn Scrapers. Board member of the National Board of Research on the Plutonium Economy, the Native American Student Council (NASC) and the Native American Solidarity Committee. Co-founder of Women of All Red Nations (WARN), 1974. Member of the advisory board of the National Women’s Health Network. Speaker at the Conference on Indians in the Americas of the United Nations in Geneva, 1977. 

Photo. Northern Cheyenne Chief Tribal Judge Marie Sanchez at the Women’s International Democratic Federation Conference in Moscow, 1978.