LaNada War Jack

LaNada War Jack (born LaNada Vernae Boyer, 1947), also known as LaNada Boyer and LaNada Means, is an American writer and activist.

LaNada Vernae Boyer was born in 1947 on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in Bingham County, Idaho to Olive May (née Burns) and Edward Queep Boyer.

Her mother was a veteran of World War II and had worked as a welder in the Vancouver shipyard before returning to the reservation to raise her family.

On her maternal side, her grandparents were Edith (née Bartlett), a teacher descended from Teash Ocean, and John Burns, son of the Bannock chief, Tahgee.

Her father had also served in the United States Navy in Vancouver and later became a council member and chair of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation of Idaho during the termination period.

He represented the tribe in their land claims, and testified before the U.S. Congress on civil rights, education, and water rights in the 1960s.

In the 1960s, it was rare for political movements to have women in leadership positions and supporting Means in her authority to lead became a symbol for indigenous feminism.

Within three months, the strikes were successful in securing an agreement for launching the first ethnic studies department in the United States at UC Berkeley.

Since the 1964 Occupation of Alcatraz, the island had been a powerful symbol to urban Indians in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In 1965, because there were no jobs on the reservation, Boyer moved to San Francisco, through the U.S. government relocation program.

She married Theodore L. Means, a relative of Russell Means.

The couple had two children but divorced in 1967.

She was the first Native American student admitted to the University of California at Berkeley in 1968.

She led the drive to create the Native American Student Organization and became its chair.

In January 1968, she enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley, becoming the first Native American student admitted to the institution.

Active in student politics, she led the drive to create the campus Native American Student Organization and became its chair.

As a leader of the Third World Strike at UC Berkeley in 1969, she was arrested but succeeded in obtaining approval for the first ethnic studies courses to be included in the university's curricula.

A few months later, she became one of the organizers of the Occupation of Alcatraz in 1969.

In January 1969, Means became involved in the Third World Strike, which demanded that the university included histories of communities of color in their curricula to be taught by people of color.

It united students from the Afro-American Students Union, the Asian American Political Alliance, the Mexican-American Student Confederation, and the Native American Student Organization.

Means was among the students arrested during the protests and suspended for her leadership of the demonstrations, along with Manuel Ruben Delgado and Ysidro Macias.

In 1969, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors granted Lamar Hunt preliminary approval for the commercial development of Alcatraz.

Shortly after, in October, the San Francisco Indian Center, the primary meeting place and administrative center for social services for the Bay Area's urban Indians burned.

The United Council of the Bay Area proposed Alcatraz as a replacement facility and began plans to take over the island.

On November 9, 1969, Means and Richard Oakes led 12 other students to occupy Alcatraz Island overnight.

Lacking food and shelter, they left the following day.

Distancing herself from "so called Indian leaders" who were distrusted because of their age and social status in mainstream society, Means urged the student activists to plan a return to the island when John Folster, Adam Fortunate Eagle, and George Woodward were out of town.

The students chose November 20, because the leadership were scheduled to be away at a national Indian educational conference.

In the 1970s, he founded the Shoshone-Bannock Legal Research Project to continue the cultural and civic protection of American Indians.

He was descended from war chief Tah mon mah.

Boyer attended school on the reservation and in the American Indian boarding schools system.

She was a good student but was frequently expelled and had to change schools because she spoke out about the institutional environment.

"Children were beaten for speaking their native language, practicing their culture, and following their own religions".

After the occupation, she completed her bachelor's degree at the University of California, Berkeley and went on to study law at Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C. While in Washington, she participated in the takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs office in 1972.

Returning to Idaho in 1974, War Jack (then known as Boyer) was involved in tribal politics and served a two-year term on the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation of Idaho Tribal Council.

In 1979, she moved to Nevada and operated a ranch near Wadsworth, gaining certification in permaculture from the Permaculture Institute at Tagari Garden Farm, near Sisters Creek, Tasmania.

Along with her husband, Gus James, a Northern Paiute, she worked on preserving natural resources for American Indian use.

When they divorced in the early 1990s, she returned to Idaho and earned a master's degree in public administration and a PhD in political science from Idaho State University.

She served for three years as the Executive Director of the Shoshone Bannock Tribes.

She has continued her activism on behalf of Native people and is a distinguished professor at Boise State University, teaching Native law and governance courses.