Ozawa Bineshi Albert

Why you should listen

Ozawa Bineshi Albert is Anishinaabe and Yuchi. She lives in relocated Yuchi and Muscogee territory in Oklahoma, also known as Tulsa, and remembers her family organizing for community and Indigenous rights throughout her upbringing. Her work over the last 30 years has primarily focused on environmental justice and Indigenous rights, and she's also been part of pivotal movement building and multicultural spaces.

Bineshi Albert became one of the founders of the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) as a young person. She also supported the creation and development of both an Indigenous Feminist Organizing School and an International Feminist Organizing School. She is currently co-executive director of the Climate Justice Alliance, where she leads with two other dynamic women of color. An avid creative, she wrote three plays and performed for three years with Hembras de Pluma in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her career has been a journey of community organizing, building power and working to protect Mother Earth while dancing, creating and cooking. As she says: "I work to build a society that sees itself as part of the land and not dominating over it. Then, and only then, will people be able to see the climate crisis we are in and act as if our pants were on fire!"