User:Arse.Lupin/Women of All Red Nations

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Women of All Red Nations (WARN) was a Native American women's organization that fought for Native American women's rights. It was established in 1974 by Lorelei DeCora Means, Madonna Thunderhawk, Phyllis Young, Janet McCloud, Marie Sanchez and others. WARN included more than 300 women from 30 different tribal communities. Many of its members had previously been active in the American Indian Movement and were participants in the 1973 Wounded Knee incident. The inaugural conference took place in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Rapid City Conference (1974)
Due to issues in AIM, Madonna Thunderhawk, Janet McCloud, and Lorelei DeCora called for a women's meeting. This conference was held in Rapid City, South Dakota. Over 300 women from different tribes attended to discuss concerns about women's rights within indigenous communities. Attendees were both former AIM activists and new activists. AIM had not attended to the concerns of these women, so the conference was held to come up with an alternate solution. This solution was WARN - Women of All Red Nations. WARN was founded by the women at the Rapid City conference to attend to issues involving indigenous women's health and safety. Other concerns that they had were ending domestic abuse, ending involuntary sterilization of Native women, and fighting substance abuse in tribal communities.

At the conference, it was established that WARN would continue the movement for Indigenous Peoples' rights, however, they would ensure that women had a large role in the activism. Women were not allowed to be leaders in AIM. WARN decided to change that. Women were making the decisions. They were leading. Women's rights became a more prevalent issue and issues involving women were taken more seriously.

Protests and Political Action
To protest the issues that WARN was advocating against, political action was taken and protests were held. In 1978, Janet McCloud led a march between numerous sites, located from the West Coast all the way to Washington D.C. The march was 3,000 miles. At the end of the march, a protest was held in Washington D.C. The protest was opposing proposed new bills that would constrict Indigenous Peoples' treaty rights, as well as bills that would violate fishing, hunting, land, and water rights held by the Native population. Over 30,000 people rallied in the capital to oppose these bills. Soon after the rally, McCloud traveled to Seattle and destroyed copies of the bills in front of the Seattle representative's office. While many other protests and rallies happened around this time, this is the only one directly associated with WARN.

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