Mary Annette Pember
ICT
Fighting domestic violence is in Bonnie Clairmont’s bones.
Clairmont, winner of this year’s Tillie Black Bear Women are Sacred Award from the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, has known the battle since childhood. Her mother Elizabeth sheltered victims of domestic violence in the family home in St. Paul, Minnesota, for as long as Clairmont can remember.
“There was no police help back then so my mom sheltered battered relatives at our house,” Clairmont, Ho-Chunk, told ICT in Milwaukee during the resource center’s conference in July and August.
Now 75 years old, she recalls how angry perpetrators would bang on the family’s door, sometimes late at night, demanding access to victims. Her mother would stand up to the men.
“‘Leave us alone, or I’ll call the cops,’ and even, ‘I’ve got a gun!’ she’d yell at them,” Clairmont said.
Her mother actually did have a gun. “It was an old shotgun, kinda rusty, and we never had bullets in the house for it, but she’d wave it at them from the window,” she recalled.
Like Black Bear, one of the founders of the National Commission Against Domestic Violence in 1980, Clairmont is one of the early advocates of the movement to end violence against women.
Black Bear, of the Sicangu Lakota or Rosebud Sioux Tribe, is often described as the grandmother of the movement. She consulted with the U.S. Civil Rights Commission on the conditions and needs of Native women in 1978, and advocated for passage of the Violence Against Women Act, Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, the Tribal Law and Order Act and others.
She helped found the White Buffalo Calf Women’s Society domestic violence shelter in 1977, the first of its kind in Indian Country, and the women’s resource center in 2011. Black Bear, whose traditional Lakota name was Wa Wokiya Win (Woman who helps everyone) died in 2014 at age 67.
In recognition of her legacy, the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, based in Lame Deer, Montana, declared Oct. 1 as the National Tillie Black Bear Women are Sacred Day to kick off Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October.
The center established the Tillie Black Bear Women are Sacred Award in 2015, saying it “uplifts grassroots advocates who lead from a survivor-centered, community-driven approach.”
Past recipients include Coleen Clark, Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes, in 2015; Carmen O’Leary, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, in 2018; Sandra Pilgrim Lewis, Lakota, and Leanne Guy, Diné, in 2020; and Tami Truett Jerue, Anvik Tribe, in 2023.
“Since 2015, the Tillie Black Bear Women Are Sacred Award has honored Tillie’s life and legacy, uplifting grassroots advocates who, like her, are dedicated to restoring safety and sovereignty for Native women and Tribal communities,” Lucy Simpson, Diné, executive director of the women’s resource center, said in a statement to ICT.
“This year, the committee reviewed more than 60 nominations from across Indian Country, and Bonnie was chosen for the extraordinary heart she brings to this work,” Simpson said. “Recognizing her with this award is not only a way to honor Tillie, but to celebrate the leadership, integrity, and love Bonnie has poured into this movement.”
Gaining ground
Clairmont described her early days in the Twin Cities working to draw attention to violence against Native women.
While working for the nonprofit Division of Indian Work in Minneapolis, she was recruited to run the organization’s sexual assault program. She later worked for a crisis center for more than 15 years.
“I was the only sexual assault advocate in the Twin Cities for a time,” Clairmont said.
She recalled that in the late 1980s three Native women were found raped and murdered in the Minneapolis area. Police and the press focused on the women’s life choices as contributing to their deaths, she said.
“Both the press and police described how the women were all seen late at night leaving bars. They were painted as somehow responsible for their victimization,” she said.
Clairmont and others worked with members of the American Indian Movement to patrol the streets around south Minneapolis, sometimes escorting women home late at night. She organized support groups and offered self-defense classes.
Reaching out to members of the police force, Clairmont helped organize training sessions, encouraging officers to look for people who are vulnerable and focus on protecting them rather than arresting them.
“Those with addiction problems are often targeted by perpetrators; victims don’t choose to get attacked,” she said.
Clairmont emphasized the human element of victims and challenged police to personalize them as daughters, sisters and mothers.
“It’s gotten better after a lot of collaborative work and training, but back then it was horrible,” she said.
An a-ha moment
Clairmont has always loved providing direct services for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
“It’s really gratifying when you see people empowered to find their own voices and new places in life,” she said. “That’s the reward.”
After a few years, however, Clairmont had what she describes as an “a-ha moment.” She came to see how underlying inequities contribute to systemic racism and sexism that drives violence against women and others in the Native community.
In 2009, Clairmont was recruited by Sarah Deer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation to join the Tribal Law and Policy Institute, where she continues to work as a victim advocacy specialist based in Minnesota. Deer, a well-known attorney and longtime advocate for survivors of violence, is credited with playing an instrumental role in the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which for the first time recognized inherent rights of tribal nations in criminal jurisdiction over non-Native defendants accused of domestic violence.
In her role at the Institute, Clairmont has been focusing on providing resources for tribes in creating and incorporating victim’s rights into their law-and-order codes. In 2022, she helped write a guide for drafting victim’s rights codes. According to the guide, “the resource was written with the belief that tribal governments have the ability to draft victim’s rights laws centered on their tribal beliefs that convey compassion for those harmed by crime.”
Examples of such codes may include no-contact orders for perpetrators; victims’ rights to be informed; the right of return of property; the right to protection from intimidation and harassment or harm by defendants, their families, friends or third parties; the right to receive referrals to traditional healers and resources as well as a grievance process if those rights are violated.
Clairmont recalls that her mother worked not only to help women who were victimized but questioned the underlying reasons behind violence and why members of the community failed to step up and help each other.
“We’ve been colonized to put aside our traditions that used to keep us in line,” she said.
Keeping with traditions
Clairmont encourages communities to include their traditions and ways into their law and order and victims’ rights codes – a sentiment that is very much in keeping with Black Bear’s philosophy surrounding her advocacy.
According to Restoration Magazine, published by the NIWRC, Black Bear’s leadership was grounded in Lakota spirituality. She believed that traditional practices and ceremonies could offer healing and strength to survivors of abuse.
For instance, the first shelter in Rosebud was named after the White Buffalo Calf Woman, a sacred legend among the Lakota. One of the main teachings of that legend is that even in thought, women are to be respected.
“Tillie understood such organizations were essential in the long-term struggle to reestablish the safety of Native women and the sovereignty of Indian nations diminished by the systemic colonization of Indigenous nations,” Simpson, the organization’s executive director, wrote in the magazine. “This oppression is deeply ingrained in the legal framework of the United States.”
And today, as advocates struggle with securing federal funding in the wake of President Donald Trump’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion, Clairmont said, “We need to stand strong against backlash from Trump-style policies.”
“I’ll continue to do what I’ve always done with my ancestors and mother, just standing strong for what I believe in and being there for our relatives.”