By: Alex Blaszczyk
“Mother’s Milk Project” by Noelle Fries, Celebrate People’s History Poster Series
This podcast details the Native American connection of reproduction to the land, and the Akwesasne women’s response to degradation of the St.Lawrence River threatening their own reproductive rights. It focuses in on Katsi Cook, a leader in this Akwesasne movement and a pioneer of native women’s healthcare rights. It then follows the Mother’s Milk Project, an initiative started by the Cook and the Akwesasne, from its beginning to initiatives by other Native American tribes that the Mother’s Milk Project laid the groundwork for. The podcast includes clips from Katsi Cook’s oral history in the Smith College Voices of Feminism Oral History Archive, and uses primary sources from the Katsi Cook Papers in the Smith College Archive, along with several scientific studies regarding PCBs cited below.
