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November 27, 2024
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Sculpture Revealed of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first Native American doctor.

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear
by
jodi@imfreedomalliance.org https://twitter.com/JodiRave
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By GEORGIANA AUSAN
Buffalo’s Fire

Lincoln, Neb. – The Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs revealed a sculpture of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte on Thursday, June 17, 2021. Dr. Picotte, daughter of Omaha Chief Iron Eye (Joseph LaFlesche), dreamed of becoming a doctor. Little did she know, she would become the first Native American doctor and one of the most extraordinary figures in American history. 

Dr. Picotte was born on the Omaha Reservation in northeast Nebraska in 1865 and died in 1915. She became the first Native person to earn a medical degree in 1889. After receiving her degree, she returned to the reservation to care for Native and non-Native residents, and two years before her death, Picotte opened a hospital in Walthill, Nebraska.

“We are honoring our relative, we are honoring history by making history today. We are celebrating the legacy of a tribal member that had worked through hardship, hard times, but persevered” said Everett Baxter Jr., Chairman of the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska. “For her to see a problem and to identify rather than getting upset, she went along and got herself educated and came home and brought back the knowledge. She created a hospital with not a whole lot of resources. She got it done…This is history celebrating history.”

In her career, she served more than 1,300 people over 450 square miles. The sculpture serves as a lasting legacy to our country’s first Native American physician.

The sculpture will be placed on Centennial Mall in a space next to the Scottish Rite Temple across from the State Office building between L and M streets. Dedication of the finalized bronze sculpture will be on October 11, 2021, Indigenous Peoples Day.

Buffalo’s Fire is the digital news site of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, a nonprofit organization located on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota.

Sculpture of Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte
A sculpture stands of Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte in Lincoln (Photo by Georgiana Ausan, Buffalo’s Fire)

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Jodi Rave Spotted Bear
jodi@imfreedomalliance.org https://twitter.com/JodiRave

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear is the founder and director of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, a 501-C-3 nonprofit organization with offices in Bismarck, N.D. and the Fort Berthold Reservation. Jodi spent 15 years reporting for the mainstream press. She's been awarded prestigious Nieman and John S. Knight journalism fellowships at Harvard and Stanford, respectively. She also an MIT Knight Science Journalism Project fellow. Her writing is featured in "The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity," published by Columbia University Press. Jodi currently serves as a Society of Professional Journalists at-large board member, an SPJ Foundation board member, and she chairs the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee. Jodi has won top journalism awards from mainstream and Native press organizations. She earned her journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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