Authors

American (Yankton Sioux) · 1876–1938

Zitkala-Sa

Zitkala-Sa (Red Bird) was a Yankton Sioux writer, musician, and activist who was one of the first Native Americans to write extensively in English without a non-Native intermediary. Her autobiographical essays in the Atlantic Monthly (1900) and her collection Old Indian Legends (1901) are foundational texts of Native American literature. She co-wrote the first Native American opera, Sun Dance Opera (1913). She co-founded the National Council of American Indians in 1926 and spent decades advocating for Indigenous citizenship and rights.