Join editors Mary Ann Jacobs, Cherry Maynor Beasley, and Ulrike Wiethaus for a virtual conversation on their recently released book, Upon Her Shoulders: Southeastern Native Women Share Their Stories of Justice, Spirit, and Community.

The book documents the autobiographical stories and poems of Southeastern American Indian women whose hard work and daily fight to keep their communities well and safe is all too often disregarded by mainstream publications and the general public. At the end of each section, the editors provide questions for reflection. Aimed at general readers and especially American Indian women themselves, this book celebrates the voices of those in native communities in the US Southeast, a region rarely covered in other publications. The editors, with deep roots in the scholarship and culture of American Indian women, have collected original stories, narratives, and poems.

Mary Ann Jacobs is an Associate Professor and chairs American Indian Studies at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNCP). She holds a PhD in Social Welfare with an emphasis in Child Welfare policy from the University of Chicago. She is the co-editor of American Indian Women of Proud Nations: Essays on History, Language, and Education (Peter Lang, 2016) and numerous articles and textbook sections.

Cherry Maynor Beasley is a recognized expert in public health, culture of health, and education. She has devoted most of her 45-year career to rural, underserved populations. She is an active member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. She is the current chair of the Department of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, located in a rural, minority-majority community experiencing entrenched poverty. She serves as the inaugural Anna Belk Endowed Professor for Rural and Minority Health, is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, and a Major in the Army Nurse Corp. Dr. Beasley, whose primary expertise is in the area of health, has joined Drs. Jacob and Wiethaus as a co-editor of American Indian Women of Proud Nations: Essays on History, Language, and Education (Peter Lang, 2016).

Ulrike Wiethaus, Ph.D. is Professor Emerita in the Department for the Study of Religions and in American Ethnic Studies at Wake Forest University. She was elected as the 2013 Community Solutions Fellow with the Institute for Public Engagement at Wake Forest University, received the Donald O. Schoonmaker Faculty Award for Community Service, and served as a Shively Faculty Fellow. Widely published, her most recent publication in American Indian Studies is American Indian Women of Proud Nations: Essays on History, Language, and Education co-edited with Cherry Maynor Beasley and Mary Ann Jacobs.