Sharon Day

Among Indigenous leaders working to sustain the possibility for a good life for future generations, it would be difficult to find anyone who has done more than Sharon Day. An Anishinaabe elder, artist, musician, poet, and playwright, Day has served since 1987 as executive director of the Indigenous Peoples Task Force. When making decisions, Indigenous people ask how their actions will affect the next seven generations - not the next quarter’s profits.

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Day is the leader of the Nibi Water Walks; ceremonial walking prayers for water. She and her companions have walked the entire lengths of the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Potomac, Wisconsin, Red, and other rivers. During these ceremonial walks water gathered at each river’s source is carried in a copper vessel to its mouth. It must always move forward, as water does in nature. Women carry the water; men may carry the eagle staff.

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There is much we must do to preserve our democracy, but protecting the planet that sustains it must rank among the most urgent. No democracy can endure on a planet of poisoned water, polluted air, collapsing ecosystems, and mass migrations from regions climate change has rendered uninhabitable.  Indigenous peoples have long understood what the modern world has forgotten: human beings are not separate from nature, and the Earth is not merely a commodity to be exploited.

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The Māori people of New Zealand offer an example. For generations, they resisted the degradation and exploitation of the Whanganui River, which they regard as part of their identity. After more than a century of protests, litigation, and negotiations, New Zealand enacted the Te Awa Tupua Act in 2017. The law now recognizes the river - from its mountain headwaters to the sea - as a living, indivisible being possessing the rights, powers, and protections of a legal person.

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In the United States the Supreme Court tragically has instead extended the status of “person” to corporations and with catastrophic consequences. Unlike the Māori people, we have empowered corporations to purchase influence over the very government charged with protecting us.

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Sharon Day is not tall, but she casts a long shadow. To spend time with her is to be inspired by the presence of a holy person. The love she radiates, her optimism, selflessness, and reverence for Mother Earth offer an antidote to the plunder, greed, and hatred of our time.

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“When people are connected to the lands they reside on, to their gardens, plants, trees, there is a feeling of belonging - belonging to the earth, knowing the land nurtures you. We in turn care for the land and the springs, the streams or lakes that surround us.”

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MARINE ON ST. CROIX, MINNESOTA – SEPTEMBER 19, 2026