Native American editor and reporter Mark Trahant among six entering National Native American Hall of Fame

Mark Trahant will be inducted into the National Native
American Hall of Fame. (Indian Country Today photo)

Indian Country Today Editor Mark Trahant will be inducted into the 2023 National Native American Hall of Fame. Trahant, who is a member of the Shoshone Bannock Tribes, is a celebrated author, editor, reporter, and former president of the Native American Journalists Association. "Trahant has had a lasting effect on media to the benefit of Native American communities through his responsible storytelling and journalism. . . . He was co-author of a series on federal Indian policy and a finalist for the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting," the 2023 class announcement says. "Books that he has written include The Last Great Battle of the Indian Wars, Pictures of Our Nobler Selves and The Constitution as Metaphor. . . . He was named Best Columnist by the Native American Journalists. He was a co-winner of the Heywood Broun Award. In 2019, Trahant received the NAJA-Medill Milestone Achievement Award. Trahant was chairman and chief executive officer at the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.

The 2023 class includes individuals who have "made contributions across a range of categories, including law, journalism, advocacy, writing, and entertainment." The induction ceremony will be held this fall. The additional inductees to be enshrined are:

Joe DeLaCruz, Quinault Indian Nation, brought intelligence and charisma to the struggle to get effective self-governance to his tribe. He served as president for 22 years and to Indians across the country. DeLaCruz built a formidable record of accomplishment, tackling such tough and long-standing issues as access to reservation lands by non-Natives, fisheries, and logging management, and perhaps most notably, the status and role of Indian tribes within the American body politics. DeLaCruz passed away in 2000. 

Will Sampson, Muscogee Creek, was an actor, artist, and rodeo competitor before passing away in 1987. Sampson's most notable roles were as Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and as Taylor the Medicine Man in the horror film Poltergeist II. . . . Sampson received the Canadian Genie Award in 1980 for "Best Performance by a Foreign Actor" in the film, Fish Hawk. He advocated for Native actors to play Native roles in movies. Sampson founded the American Indian Registry for the Performing Arts for Native American actors. 

Leslie Marmon Silko, Laguna Pueblo, is an acclaimed novelist, poet, and essayist. She received the 1994 Native Writers' Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2020 Robert Kirsch Award. Silko was a key figure in the first wave of what literary critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance. Silko garnered early literary acclaim for her short story "The Man to Send Rain Clouds," which was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Discovery grant. 

Richard Trudell, a member of the Santee Dakota Sioux Tribe in Nebraska, was the founder and executive director of the American Indian Lawyer Training Program and its American Indian Resources Institute. Under Trudell's direction and vision, AILTP launched its premier publication, the Indian Law Reporter.Trudell is a veteran and received a degree in accounting and a law degree. 

LaNada Means War Jack, Shoshone Bannock, Native American writer and activist and the first Native American student admitted to the University of California in 1968. War Jack co-led the student occupation of Alcatraz Island in a peaceful protest of the federal government's ill treatment of Native people and broken treaties with tribes. . . . War Jack was on the founding board and executive board of the Native American Rights Fund for nearly a decade. She has been an elected councilwoman for her tribes and served on many boards both locally and nationally. 

The Native American Hall of Fame is located on the campus of the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City. Its mission is to recognize and honor the inspirational achievements of Native Americans in contemporary history. The organization also serves as a unique resource for identifying and honoring these contemporary pathmakers, new heroes, and significant contributors to American society.