Red Hoop Talk EP 31: CARLY BAD HEART BULL, Dakota/Creek/Flandreau Santee Sioux
Join #REDHOOPTALK live this Sunday to visit with Carly Bad Heart Bull, who is Bdewakantunwan Dakota and Muskogee Creek, and a citizen of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. Carly is the Executive Director of the Native Ways Federation, an organization uniting nonprofit organizations to better serve and create awareness of American Indian communities. She previously worked with the Bush Foundation, where she served as the Native Nations Activities Manager working with Indigenous nations since 2014. Her service area encompassed Minnesota, North and South Dakota and the 23 Tribal Nations within the region.
Carly has a background in law, and prior to joining the Bush Foundation, she was an Assistant County Attorney for the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office (Minneapolis, Minnesota) in its child protection division. She also taught the Dakota language to early childhood students in South Minneapolis. She serves as vice chairwoman of the board of local nonprofit and Indigenous farm, Dream of Wild Health, and on the board of Native Americans in Philanthropy. In 2018, Carly was named an “Unsung Hero” of Minnesota by local media outlet City Pages for her instrumental work on reclaiming the Dakota name of Minneapolis’ largest lake (formerly Lake Calhoun) to Bde Maka Ska. In 2019, she was selected by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation as a Community Leadership Network Fellow, a program for leaders across the country working to create transformational change toward a more equitable society for all.
Carly holds a Juris Doctorate degree cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School, a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota, and an Associate of Arts degree from Minneapolis Community and Technical College.
Carly lives in Minneapolis with her husband Jay and their young son Quill.
