Searching For Savanna with Author Mona Gable

Searching For Savanna: The Murder of One Native American Woman and the Violence Against the Many with Author Mona Gable 

Sunday, March 9

4-5 pm CT

Online

A gripping and illuminating investigation “that is far overdue” (Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises) into the disappearance of Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind when she was eight months pregnant, highlighting the shocking epidemic of violence against Native American women in America and the societal ramifications of government inaction.

In the summer of 2017, twenty-two-year-old Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind vanished. A week after she disappeared, police arrested the white couple who lived upstairs from Savanna and emerged from their apartment carrying an infant girl. The baby was Savanna’s, but Savanna’s body would not be found for days.

The horrifying crime sent shock waves far beyond Fargo, North Dakota, where it occurred, and helped expose the sexual and physical violence Native American women and girls have endured since the country’s colonization.

With pathos and compassion, Searching for Savanna confronts this history of dehumanization toward Indigenous women and the government’s complicity in the crisis. Featuring in-depth interviews, personal accounts, and trial analysis, this timely book investigates these injustices and the decades-long struggle by Native American advocates for meaningful change.

AUTHOR BIO:

Mona Gable is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. She is a contributing writer to Prevention. She is the author of the 2014 memoir, Blood Brother: The Gene That Rocked My Family.

MODERATOR BIO:

Prairie Rose Seminole is Northern Cheyenne, Arikara and Dakota, and an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of ND on the Fort Berthold Reservation. She is an educator, culture bearer, storyteller, and street theologian. Prairie Rose is Co-Director of the short documentary film, We Ride For Her. She is also a grant manager at the Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College and Placemaker with the Northern Plains National Heritage Area.

This One Book, One ND event is sponsored by The Paris Family Foundation and Prairie Public

HND Value Statement:

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or Humanities North Dakota. However, in an increasingly polarized world, we at Humanities North Dakota believe that being open-minded is necessary to thinking critically and rationally. Therefore, our programs and classes reflect our own open-mindedness in the inquiry, seeking, and acquiring of scholars to speak at our events and teach classes for our Public University. To that end, we encourage our participants to join us in stepping outside our comfort zones and considering other perspectives and ideas by being open-minded while attending HND events featuring scholars who hold a variety of opinions, some being opposite of our own held beliefs.

Humanities North Dakota classes and events are funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities