:Beloved Women: The Political Lives of LaDonna Harris and Wilma Mankiller

Abstract

“Beloved woman” is the traditional name the Cherokee Nation gave to women who had earned respect and authority in tribal affairs, sometimes for their feats in battle but more generally for their spiritual wisdom and power. Sarah Eppler Janda applies this term to the subjects of her book, LaDonna Harris and Wilma Mankiller, whom she considers the two most important Native American female political leaders in the late twentieth century. Janda focuses on how Harris and Mankiller formed their identity as Indian women, the means by which they gained authority, the objectives to which they applied their power, and the public images they constructed and were constructed by. LaDonna Harris was born in Oklahoma in 1931 to a Comanche mother and a white father. She spent her childhood with her maternal grandparents, immersed in a community steeped in Comanche culture. In her last year of high school, she married Fred Harris, bore three children, and supported her husband's career first in the Oklahoma legislature and then as U.S. Senator in the heyday of the Great Society. As the couple became part of Washington's inner circle of liberals, Harris used her husband's prestige and connections—as well as the media's fascination with this interracial marriage and her Comanche heritage—to advocate for Native American issues and ultimately to establish an independent career as spokesperson for Indians.