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Buffy Sainte-Marie

Foreword author, Children of Native America Today

Academy Award winner Buffy Sainte-Marie was born at the Piapot (Cree) Reserve in Saskatchewan, Canada, and raised in Maine and Massachusetts. She has a degree in Oriental philosophy, a teacher's degree, and a PhD in fine arts, all from the University of Massachusetts. She became famous in the early 1960s for her love songs and protest songs. Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Roberta Flack, Sonny and Cher, and over two hundred other artists worldwide recorded her song “Until It’s Time for You to Go.” Her composition "Universal Soldier" was the anthem of the anti–Vietnam War peace movement.

In 1969, she founded the Nihewan Foundation for American Indian Education, which has grown to include scholarships, teacher training, the Cradleboard Teaching Project, and the Youth Council on Race. The Cradleboard Teaching Project presently facilitates communication among Native American and non-Native children in Canada and the US through the use of computer technology and a progressive Native Studies curriculum.

Buffy was presented with the 1997 Louis T. Delgado Award for Native American Philanthropist of the Year for her work with the Cradleboard Teaching Project. During the late 1990s, she served on the Committee to Save America’s Treasures, which worked to protect the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings and the Cahokia Mounds archaeological collection. In 2000–2001, she was a commissioner on the National Commission on Service Learning, which was chaired by Dr. William Richardson and former senator and astronaut John Glenn.

Buffy received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Indian College Fund in 1998. She was recently inducted as an officer in the Order of Canada, which is the highest civilian honor that country can bestow. In November 2002, she sang at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to celebrate the launch of the first Native American astronaut. In 2003, Buffy was named spokesperson for UNESCO Canada.