Cecilia Firethunder has spent decades fighting for the rights of the Ogala people of South Dakota.

Ms Firethunder, 76, was the first woman elected Oglala Tribal president, and works teaching culture, language and history at Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Now run by the Ogala Lakota community as a day school, Ms Firethunder attended when it was a Catholic Church-operated boarding school.

"I went to school here for 10 years… I'm not a survivor, I'm a thriver," she told National Indigenous Times.

She drew parallels between the struggles of indigenous peoples worldwide.

"All things in the world are not the same, but what happened to Indians happened from the tip of Alaska to the tip of South America… but the good news is we're still here, damn it. They didn't get rid of us completely."

Pine Ridge, the eight-largest Native reservation in the United States, is sovereign Tribal territory.

"There are many, many indigenous people around the world who don't have land base like we do. Having a land base I think is really crucial and important. And the word I like to use is belonging, a sense of belonging and that comes from deep inside," Ms Firethunder noted.

"I am the director of the Truth and Healing project to tell the story of the mission that was here. I went to school here for 10 years, I also have the status of an elder and that means I know something."

She also works with every tribal school on Pine Ridge.

"We have a variety of different education systems on the Pine Ridge Reservation. We also have Oglala Lakota College, which has nine centres - one center in every district of the community… then we have Rapid City providing education to the tribal members in Rapid City, then we have another one on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation," she said.

"I would say a dream that was held by our uncles was to bring to the community different disciplines of education. Nursing is one of them… we need more people to provide health care services to our people.

"Our language defines who we are, and makes a connection to all things of the past… language and culture is the foundation of our identity, language and culture gives us strength.

"All Indian children on the Pine Ridge Reservation regardless of what school they go to, should be given classes in who they are. So, all the schools, including the college, has a program to teach the language… there's a huge movement for people to be able to speak the language."

Ms Firethunder became active in the 1960s, inspired by the civil rights movement.

"My introduction to change came from African American women in Los Angeles in 1963. After the 10th grade, my father affected by the next movement to eradicate us or erase us… The relocation program was designed to provide employment opportunities… However, the bigger plan was to do was get rid of us, that we would move to Los Angeles and Detroit and Cleveland and Chicago in disappear. Well, that didn't happen.

"We lived in East Los Angeles with the Chicano Mexican American community. They were from all over South America, but they were all in East LA. We were right in the middle of that community, my father found a job in a large corporation that he stayed with until he retired. My father had a really good work ethic that taught me my sisters that work ethic.

"After my children were born, and I was working as a nurse, I became involved in politics. When Shirley Chisholm (the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress) was running for president, I got a chance to meet her at a rally in Los Angeles. When Geraldine Ferraro was running for vice president, I got a chance to meet her. Being with African American women, Hispanic women and Asian women… I was enmeshed in these different cultures on my activism and political awareness. That's how I learned.

"When I was in Los Angeles, we were able to create the first Indian clinic to provide healthcare to Indians living in Los Angeles. Many of our fathers were given low paying jobs, with little or no health insurance. We knew that a lot of Indians in LA needed health care. And that's when the free clinic movement started… The American Indian free clinic opened in Compton, California in 1971. My job was to recruit doctors. My activism began in looking for resources to provide healthcare for our community.

"When I came home (to South Dakota), I was ready to hit the ground running… We were organising to end violence against women, which was the first thing we did, to change the law here on Pine Ridge to hold those who hurt us accountable, that not only meant the person who was hurting us, but the system, the police department and the courts."

Ms Firethunder noted that her ability to speak the language of her people was as important as her experience as an activist.

"Our tribe was the first one in the United States to create comprehensive legislation to address violence against women, (which) we shared with other tribes, the next piece that's attached to that was child abuse. And child abuse was another piece of legislation that we did for the tribe, to enhance the law for greater accountability. I learned how to do this work with other women of color far away."

"I hit the ground running in 1987… my organising skills and learning to speak the language allowed people to trust me and to strengthen our teams to address all those issues.

"I've taken my skills from when I was working in California State Legislature, I've taken that knowledge to the White House. And also, and I teach other school boards… because unfortunately, our budget is under the Department of Interior. And only Congress can increase our budgets. So, I teach people how to write testimony, and here's the key to getting things done. Persistence every week, email them every week."

Ms Firethunder said a deep connection with her culture played a vital role in beginning her run for Tribal president.

"I went on a vision quest. I'd go with the medicine man. We went to ceremony. And I went up on a vision quest for two days and two nights to ask the permission of those who were before me, to ask the permission of the spirits, if it was okay for me to run, to break that paradigm…. that spirit gave me permission to run for the highest office of my people. I ran, and I won. And I beat Russell Means (American Indian Movement co-founder).

"I became the first Lakota woman to be the president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. I walked into that role knowing what the barriers were. I knew that it was something that was going to be difficult and hard."

She noted she was impeached for her support of reproductive freedom for women, an impeachment subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Subsequently, she chose to step down from the position but continues her work in other ways.

"We are all like a tree. Our roots carry the memory of that tree. The roots go deep down… The memory as human beings of who we are, is like the tree, many layers of memory," she said.

"Before 1891 here on the Pine Ridge we lived off the land… We did what we could with what we had. And we lived off the land in harmony.

"Every living thing teaches a lesson to us as a human being. And those are all embedded, not only in our Lakota culture, but all indigenous cultures have those stories. And in my work and travel, I worked in Canada, for Kenya, I was able to visit a variety of other reserves and other cultures. And I've been all over, I've been to practically every Indian Reservation in America doing the healing work that I've done in the past. And there's commonalities that we have… all around the world."