Birthday of Ramona Bennett

Ramona Bennett is a Puyallup leader and activist who was involved in the 1960s and 1970s Fish Wars of the US Pacific Northwest and in tribal sovereignty struggles for her tribe and others. She was also especially involved in advocating for Indigenous children's welfare and for the adoption of Native children with Native families long before ICWA. She helped countless people open their adoption records to refind their tribes and enroll and went on to testify to the Senate in favor of ICWA, for which her life was threatened by white Mormon men who oppossed it. She led the armed occuption of the Cushman Indian Hospital in 1976 which led to the title being returned to the Puyallup Tribe in 1980. She is a mother and a foster mother, and a treasured Puyallup elder.