Suzanne Marie Heske of DAR presents $20,000 to IAIA’s Dr. Mary Deleary.

This March, Suzanne Marie Heske, the historian general for the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), came to the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) to present to the director of the IAIA Research Center for Contemporary Arts (RCCNA), Dr. Mary Deleary (Chippewas of the Thames First Nation), a check for $20,000 toward IAIA’s digitizing the center’s Suzan Shown Harjo archive.

A distinguished Native rights advocate, poet, writer, and curator, Harjo is a Cheyenne citizen who was also raised as Hotvlkvlke Mvskokvlke, Nuyakv. A founding trustee of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), she was awarded the United States’ highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Barack Obama in 2014 for her legacy of activism and artistic and policy accomplishments.

Deleary explains that the collection found a home initially through Patsy Phillips (Cherokee Nation), who is in her 16^th year as the director of the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA). Phillips and Harjo are longtime friends and colleagues from Patsy’s tenure with the NMAI on the mall in Washington, DC. With Suzan’s son, Duke Ray Harjo II (Muscogee Nation), the two discussed donating the archive and artwork collection to IAIA. The Harjo family has a long relationship with IAIA, dating back to the 1960s, when Suzan and her late husband, Frank Ray Harjo (Muscogee Nation), lectured and read poetry on campus. In 1986, Suzan was the lead advocate who attained IAIA’s congressional charter, and in 2011, she became the first woman to receive IAIA’s honorary doctorate in the humanities.

“This is the most extensive collection we have from a single person,” said Deleary. “Once the collection arrived at IAIA in 2017, it took nearly six months to process and re-house the collection, and another three months to enter it into our database.”

Deleary hopes that “Suzan’s amazing work may lead to something that one day will provide a sort of Indigenous 101 for students and other researchers: the opportunity to gain insights into the exercise of Indigenous inherent sovereignty and our history of representation in Washington, DC, as well as our nation-to-nation relationships with the United States that have been formed and maintained in the last three centuries to the present time. Considering her involvement at a legislative and policy level, this archive will be able to educate and inspire students to pursue those types of avenues and to build the strength and the courage to go out there and speak on behalf of Indigenous peoples. That is just a wonderful legacy for the future,” Deleary says.

Suzanne Heske, in conversation with Deleary, added that “the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution has three mission pillars—historic preservation, education, and patriotism. This project allows us to preserve your history and legacy and look toward the future of Indigenous peoples.”

Heske described the process that led the DAR to fund RCCNA for Harjo’s digitized archive. “I reached out to a number of locations within New Mexico. I was particularly called to IAIA because you have a museum and archives. In my position as the DAR’s historian general, I thought there might be something that we could do. So, I spoke with Mary, and we talked about some of the ideas that would fall within our mission statement and would benefit the school and the community as well. Mary and I worked on the application process, and then it was my responsibility to pitch it to our executive committee. The executive committee weighed the merits and benefits, and we selected this project. My hope is that these funds will enable IAIA to get all the material digitized, catalogued, and accessible, either on the internet or through a database index that people will be able to access for research,” stated Heske.

Deleary explains that the project entails digitizing 63 reel-to-reel tapes and 140 audio cassette tapes spanning from the early 1970s into the 1990s, some of which may not have aged well enough to recover sound and migrate from tape. The subject matter is varied but all related to Harjo’s advocacy and work in broadcasting and print journalism in support of Indigenous peoples. The project also includes digitizing 46 VHS tapes from approximately 1995-2004. Once digitized, Deleary will work with Harjo and develop a plan to make them accessible on the IAIA research database.

In addition to her advocacy, Harjo is a columnist whose opinion pieces, news analyses, and articles have appeared in mainstream, alternative, and Native media, including in every version of Indian Country Today, from Lakota Times to the current ICT.  President of the Morning Star Institute since its inception in 1984, she was also a political appointee in the Carter administration, legislative liaison for the Native American Rights Fund and the Fried, Frank Law Firm, and executive director of the National Congress of American Indians. Harjo co-drafted and led campaigns for, among many other new laws, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978) and the AIRFA amendments (1994); the National Museum of the American Indian Act (1989); and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990). She and her husband co-produced their own radio show, Seeing Red, at WBAI-FM radio station in New York City, where she was director of drama and literature, the first woman of color to hold that position.

Harjo curated and edited the Smithsonian NMAI exhibition and book of the same title, Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations (2014-2027). Recipient of Princeton University’s honorary doctorate in humane letters (2023), she is the first Native woman elected to both of the oldest learned societies in the U.S.: the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, (1780), class of 2020 in leadership, policy, and communications—scientific cultural, and nonprofit leadership; and the American Philosophical Society (1740), class of 2022 in the arts, professions, and leaders in public and private affairs.

“Suzan Shown Harjo is a force of enduring impact, says Deleary. “Her archive offers critical insights into American Indian policy, inherent sovereignty, Native arts and cultures, and land-back activism, and the protection of Indigenous lifeways over the past five decades. Harjo’s history, and all the amazing things she’s done, are actually part of our curriculum. It’s something we teach across many of our departments. Having her digitized archive at IAIA means that our students can engage with her life’s work. The Suzan Shown Harjo Archive is an inspiration for how we move forward, and students can use it as a resource to inform and inspire their future goals as leaders in their communities.”