Celebrating Tillie Black Bear
In celebration of our annual Tillie Black Bear Women Are Sacred Day on October 1, the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC) honors Morning Star Gali, an advocate who exemplifies Tillie's teachings and dedication to our movement. Thank you, Morning Star.
Morning Star
My roots are grounded in my identity as an Ajumawi person, born and raised at the American Indian Movement (AIM) for Freedom Survival School. My parents were part of the AIM and Women of All Red Nations (WARN). Strong aunties raised me and my sister, which shaped the community organizing we continue today. At the time, the County Hospital had the second-highest infant mortality rate in the nation. I was born at a time in the late 1970s when Native women went in for routine procedures and came out involuntarily sterilized through IHS, leading my parents to make an intentional decision to birth me at home, which became a sunrise ceremony. Advocating for our peoples’ safety and protection, especially of our women and girls, was instilled in me at a young age.
I am grateful that my parents raised me within ceremonies, political, and movement-gathering spaces. I understand that spirituality and our ceremonies are the foundation of our efforts. Our relatives and ancestors guide us.
My life changed because of intimate partner violence (IPV). I traveled between home and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, North Dakota, for four months in 2016 for No DAPL (protests). I walked out of the environmental violence experienced at Standing Rock and into a violent home. In 2017, I moved to Sacramento, California. Like many survivors, I navigated a broken system that felt defeating and demoralizing. Ultimately, after three years, I received a 10-year criminal protective order after a felony stalking conviction.
What most surprised me was that community members asked me, “How could you let this happen to you? You're outspoken, a community organizer, and an advocate for Native women and girls.” Victim blaming and the shame of how I “allowed” this to happen were challenging to deal with, and why I didn't feel like I could speak up or seek help. IPV isn't about what victims did to get themselves in a situation. There are systemic issues like failures resulting in MMIW and creating conditions such that survivors feel powerless, hopeless, and that we can't speak up against it.
In 2017, while working for my tribe, I received a fellowship to address the issues of justice impacting Native peoples. This project, Restoring Justice for Indigenous Peoples, became Indigenous Justice, serving rural counties of our ancestral lands where sheriffs have historically not been friendly to Tribal members, which is common throughout California with an active militia presence.
2012 was my first experience supporting the search efforts of a missing Tribal member, Dewey McGarva. Since 2017, I've had close friends and relatives who have gone missing or been murdered. I met my close sister and friend Jessica Alva at a Tribal Youth camp in 2013. We formed a sisterhood as she was working on her recovery and sobriety. She was killed in 2019. Alva’s boyfriend has not been held accountable.
Nick Patterson went missing in 2020. There should and could have been federal resources activated for Nick, yet almost five years later, the family still has no answers. Two months after Nick's disappearance, my friend Yogi McGarva was killed in his Tribal family home. Yogi was sober when he was murdered. The individual who killed him was not.
Driving into Modoc County, the signs read, “Where the West still lives.” A cowboys versus Indians environment. A non-Native person had never been charged with the killing of a Native person. We advocated for four years for justice for Yogi using an inside-outside system approach with state agencies. For the first time this past February, the state secured a first-degree murder conviction with the maximum sentence for the individual who murdered Yogi.
By helping to fill the gaps for survivors, we can close the gap in MMIP. We want the same search efforts and resources for Indigenous peoples that Gabby Petito received in 2021 when she disappeared. Local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies coordinated immediately, found Gabby, identified what happened, and found her killer.
We've co-written and passed legislation, including AB 2022, which removes racial slurs from public place names statewide. We understand that a shift must happen for truth and healing in California with the history of injustice against California Indians and Native Americans. Recently at an event at the state capitol, legislators asked, “If you don't want to be called a squaw, then what is it that we should call you?” I thought, “We want to be called women and girls. We are full human beings; although we haven't been treated that way, this is who we are.”
We’ve created a guaranteed income pilot project (GIPP) for survivors who receive a monthly income for one year and are eligible for quarterly micro-grants for additional relief from expenses. When survivors are better resourced, they can make better decisions for themselves. We support families in crisis when their loved one goes missing from emergency support to direct services. We provide them with media training so they can tell their and their loved one’s story in a dignified way that doesn't victim blame. We want the families to feel empowered—they are experts in their stories. It's about building these reciprocal relationships, not transactional ones. Speaking up in the face of injustice is going to help other families.
We are creating a shift with Indigenous Justice. Although there may not be financial abundance in place, we're operating from a place of caring for people, including staff. We've implemented self-care strategies within our organizational culture. Staff have four weeks annually and extended bereavement. They receive a ceremonial stipend of $1000 annually. We can't do this if we're not caring for ourselves. We must have downtime to care for and nurture ourselves to be available to serve our communities with care, commitment, and courage.
