A Doctor to Her Tribe and a Warrior for Her People
Joe Starita
Monday, 10 Apr 2017 at 7:00 pm – Dolezal Auditorium, 127 Curtiss Hall
Joe Starita, professor of journalism at the University of Nebraska, will discuss his latest book, A Warrior of the People: How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Inequality to Become America's First Indian Doctor. The biography of La Flesche recounts how the Omaha woman earned a medical degree in 1889 - becoming the first Native American doctor in U.S. history - and returned to the reservation to serve as a physician to and advocate for the Omaha tribe. Joe Starita spent 14 years at The Miami Herald, first as the newspaper’s New York Bureau Chief and later as part of its Investigations Team. He returned to his native Nebraska to focus on research and writing on the regional Native American culture and history.Joe Starita's other books include The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge – A Lakota Odyssey, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in history, and “I Am A Man†– Chief Standing Bear’s Journey for Justice.
About A Warrior of the People: How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Inequality to Become America's First Indian Doctor:
On March 14, 1889, Susan La Flesche Picotte received her medical degree―becoming the first Native American doctor in U.S. history. She earned her degree thirty-one years before women could vote and thirty-five years before Indians could become citizens in their own country. By age twenty-six, this fragile but indomitable Indian woman became the doctor to her tribe. Overnight, she acquired 1,244 patients scattered across 1,350 square miles of rolling countryside with few roads. Her patients often were desperately poor and desperately sick―tuberculosis, small pox, measles, influenza―families scattered miles apart, whose last hope was a young woman who spoke their language and knew their customs.
Cosponsored By:
- American Indian Studies
- College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
- Greenlee School of Journalism & Communication
- Committee on Lectures (funded by Student Government)
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