Lenny Foster: Native American Issues and Leonard Peltier

Lenny Foster of the Diné Nation is the Director of the Navajo Nation Corrections Project and the Spiritual Advisor for more than 2,000 Native American inmates in ninety-six state and federal prisons in the Western U.S. He has co-authored legislation in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado allowing Native American spiritual and religious practice in prison and resulting in significant reductions in prison returns.

He is a board member of the International Indian Treaty Council, a sun dancer and member of the Native American Church. He has been with the American Indian Movement since 1969 and has participated in actions including Alcatraz, Black Mesa, the Trail of Broken Treaties, Wounded Knee 1973, the Menominee Monastery Occupation, Shiprock Fairchild Occupation, the Longest Walk and the Big Mountain land struggle.

Lenny Foster has received many accolades and honors for his groundbreaking work with Indigenous prisoners’ human rights. These include the Dr. Martin Luther King Civil Rights Award in Phoenix, Arizona (1993) and Kansas City, Missouri (1996); the Petra Foundation Human Rights Award in Washington, D.C. (1997) and the Citizen’s Award for Commendation of the Governor’s Religious Advisory Task Force in Salt Lake City, Utah (1997). His program was awarded High Honors from Harvard University Honoring Nations 2003 Tribal Governance Excellence. He was awarded a fellowship by the Windcall Foundation in Bozeman, Montana in June 2004. He was the recipient of the Unsung Hero Award by the Utah Division of Indian Affairs on Indigenous Day, November 22, 2004 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He received the Volunteer of the Year Native American Spiritual Advisor from the Federal Correctional Complex in Tucson, Arizona in April 2009. He also received the 2013 U.S. Human Rights Network Movement Builders Award.