Red Cloud to receive honorary degree

Henry Red Cloud, Descendent of Lakota treaty negotiator teaches techniques at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. (Photo by Talli Nauman)

PINE RIDGE — Oglala Lakota tribal member Henry Red Cloud will receive an honorary doctorate degree from Washington College for his career in the pursuit of affordable and accessible renewable energy solutions, his non-profit Communications Director Richard Fox revealed Nov. 25.
“Henry is being recognized for his work in advancing renewable energy and empowering Native American communities,” Fox said. “His work demonstrates that courage and knowledge can make a difference in the face of the global challenge of climate change and inspires hope that we can preserve and protect the natural world.”
In keeping with that history, the college has announced that on Feb. 21, it will bestow the honorary degree, Doctor of Public Service, on the executive director of the non-profit Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center and the owner of Lakota Solar Enterprises, one of the only 100-percent native-owned renewable energy companies in the world.
The award winner founded the Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center in 2008, creating a one-of-a-kind educational facility where tribal members receive solar and other green job training.
Here on the banks of White Clay Creek, he promotes renewable energy as a modern way to honor the old way and a return to traditional relationships with Mother Earth. He recalls a prophecy of his great-great grandfather Makhpiya Luta, Chief Red Cloud, who negotiated the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty.
Praying with other tribal leaders at that time, he shared a vision for the restoration of harmony and lasting peace on the war-torn Great Plains — within the passage of seven generations. Five generations later, Henry is looking at his own grandchildren as “the sacred seventh.”
“I believe that with this renewable technology, we’re getting back to that,” he says. “It’s going to bring us together. We’ll all be setting a precedent for the next seven generations,” he predicted in a recently recorded message.
Red Cloud opened the Sacred Earth Lodge in 2013, providing a 23-bed dormitory and residential training facility to accommodate a growing demand for renewable energy instruction that he helped stoke.
Fox describes him as “devoted to bringing social justice and economic development to Indian country,” noting that he is “committed to helping tribes on their path to energy sovereignty.”
He has a “philosophy of helping one family at a time,” Fox said, which “not only improves lives, but it protects our planet by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and decreasing reliance on fossil fuels.”
Red Cloud has earned a string of recognition awards for his contributions to fortifying the renewable energy market and promoting community resilience. In early 2019, he garnered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Oceti Sakowin SOLVE Fellowship, aimed at “bringing independent energy to tribal camps and communities.”
In the previous Presidential administration, he was invited to Washington, D.C. as one of the Solar Champions of Change. He is the recipient of the 2014 Berea College Service Award, the Oglala Lakota Service Award, the American Solar Energy Society’s 2013 Charles Greeley Abbot Award, and the 2012 World Energy Globe Award.
His Lakota Buffalo Caretakers Cooperative received Glynwood’s Harvest Award for leadership in regional food systems. His Lakota Solar Enterprises earned the 2010 Nuclear-Free Future Award and the Interstate Renewable Energy Innovation Award. The Corporation for Enterprise Development selected him as an Innovative Idea Champion in 2009.
Washington College, located on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, chose him for an honorary degree because of a like commitment “to achieving environmental sustainability and to training the next generation of environmental stewards,” Fox observed.
The college, chartered in 1782, was the first in the United States. Its mission, with the personal patronage of first President George Washington, was “to educate responsible citizens who could lead government, start businesses, and promote peace and knowledge.”
Today’s students work to restore native grasslands, monitor migratory bird populations, and have established a perennial polyculture to produce food in the campus garden.
A 4,700-acre River and Field Campus is home to the Center for Environment & Society, the Eastern Shore Food Lab, and robust academic programs in environmental sciences and environmental studies, it boasts. The institution offers students access to the nation’s largest estuary, the Chesapeake Bay.

(Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.com)

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