Jean Chaudhuri
Birthday: 1937
Jean Hill Chaudhuri is a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Born on her family's allotment on the Mvskoke Reservation in Okemah, Oklahoma, Jean grew up both at the Mvskoke ceremonial grounds (cuka-rakko) as well as in the Creek churches (specifically, Greenleaf). She was a first language Mvskoke speaker who was violently removed from her home by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and forced to attend the Eufala Indian Boarding School, where she was beaten for speaking her Mvskoke language. After running away 8 times, the BIA gave up chasing her down and forcing her to return. She met Joytpaul Chaudhuri when she was 17, and they were happily married in 1957. They were blessed with two sons, Joydev and Jonodev. Jean dedicated her life to advocacy for all Native peoples. As a skilled storyteller and writer, she wrote and produced several hit play, including The Four Seasons of a Woman's Life and Indians Discovered Christopher Columbus. She was an incredible community organizer, and she worked on grassroots civil rights issues for Native people from Tallahassee Florida to Tucson Arizona. While living in Tucson, she started the Traditional Indian Alliance and successfully advocated for the federal Indian Health Service to begin funding urban health care clinics for tribal citizens living in urban areas off tribal lands. While living in Phoenix, she led a grassroots campaign to prevent the federal government from gifting the campus of the Phoenix Indian Boarding School to a rich land developer corporation in Florida. Today, the School remains a park and cultural center for Phoenix's Native population, just as she envisioned. She passed away from health complications in 1997. In 1978, Justice Byron White of the United States Supreme Court presented Jean with the Jefferson Award for Public Service. She has also been inducted into the Arizona Women Hall of Fame.