"When the humble shrug, the world shakes. This is the history of all freedom struggles. My research comes with the urgency of global environmental collapse. Now more than ever are Indigenous movements, and understanding the knowledge they create, essential for building a future premised on justice. It’s decolonization or extinction."
A citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, Nick Estes is an Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. He is a historian, journalist, and host of The Red Nation Podcast. Estes also is a founding editor of Red Media Collective, which publishes books, podcasts, and stories highlighting Indigenous intelligence in all its forms. His writing and research engage decolonization, Indigenous histories, environmental justice, and anti-capitalism and have been featured in The Baffler, The Guardian, The Nation, High Country News, Indian Country Today, Jacobin, NBC News, and The Intercept. In 2019, Estes was awarded the Lannan Literary Fellowship for Non-Fiction.
Estes is the author of the book Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance. He is a co-author of two books coming out in 2021 on police abolition and Indigenous environmental justice, and is currently working on a book on the history of Red Power.
Red Nation Rising is the first book ever to investigate and explain the violent dynamics of bordertowns.
In Our History Is the Future, Nick Estes traces traditions of Indigenous resistance that led to the #NoDAPL movement.
What to learn more about the Freedom Scholars?
Questions about the Freedom Scholar awards can be sent to freedomscholars@caseygrants.org.
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR THE FREEDOM SCHOLAR AWARDS HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY THE INATAI FOUNDATION.
