National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) Screening–Without a Whisper: Konnon:Kwe

Director: Katsitsionni Fox (Mohawk)

In celebration of Women’s History Month, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) is presenting Without a Whisper: Konnon:Kwe, a film about the untold history of Native women’s influence on the early women’s rights movement in the United States.

Without a Whisper uncovers the hidden history of the profound influence Indigenous women had on the beginnings of the women’s rights movement in the United States. Before the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls in 1848, European colonial women lacked even the most basic rights, while Haudenosaunee women had a potent political and spiritual voice and authority in all aspects of their lives. The contact that the early suffragists had with Haudenosaunee women in New York state shaped their thinking and had a vital impact on their struggle for equality that is taken for granted today. The film follows Mohawk Bear Clan Mother Louise Herne and Professor Sally Roesch Wagner as they seek to correct the historical narrative about the origins of women’s rights in the United States.