Every origin story for Teters’ activism returns to a mundane, horrifying moment in 1989. As a graduate student at the University of Illinois, she brought her young children to a basketball game. What she saw was not entertainment but a ritualized exorcism: a white man in buckskin and feathered headdress, dancing with a tomahawk chop as 15,000 fans roared. For Teters, a member of the Spokane Nation, this was not a tribute. It was a living reenactment of the boarding school era, where her grandmother was stripped of her hair and language. “My children looked at me,” she later recounted, “and asked, ‘Mommy, why are they making fun of us?’”
Her story was captured in the documentary film In Whose Honor? , produced by Jay Rosenstein, which showcased her emotional journey to demand the removal of the mascot. Activism and Impact charlene teters
Teters’ journey as a catalyst for change began with her own artistic development. Educated at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA)—a premier institution for Native arts—she developed a deep appreciation for the role of art in maintaining cultural continuity and resisting the clichés that often plague Native representations. Her artistry, focused on painting and mixed media, began to center on the ways in which settler colonialism actively works to define—and diminish—Native identity. The Turning Point: Chief Illiniwek Every origin story for Teters’ activism returns to