Year: 2009
Location: Edmonton
Profile: Roy Piepenburg, an American-born social and political activist with a Quaker pacifist background, immigrated to Alberta from Wisconsin in the 1960’s with his wife, Beatrice Roy. She was a Chippewa daughter of Indigenous rights activists in Wisconsin. While he taught school in the Northwest Territories, he was involved in a government-sponsored program to encouraged Indigenous employment. He fought for Indigenous rights under Treaty 11 and combatted racial discrimination. Later, at Blue Quills School in St. Paul, Piepenburg used his position as a supervisor of residential schools for five northern Alberta reserves to stop the sexual abuse of Indigenous students. After working with the Indian Association of Alberta, and the Lubicon Cree Band, he moved to the Alberta Department of Northern Development. He became involved with the American Indian Movement, survivors of the Wounded Knee incident, and organizers fighting on behalf of imprisoned AIM activist Leonard Peltier. A lifetime peace activist, he was a war resister during World War II, and then the Vietnam anti-war movement in Canada. He was active in Project Ploughshares. During this time, he worked in such government positions as a director with the Workers’ Compensation Board and advisor to the Executive Council of the Alberta Government.
Keywords: American Indian Movement; Indian Association of Alberta; Leonard Peltier; Lubicon Cree; McCarthyism; Métis; Native Students Association of Alberta; Pacifism; Residential schools; Treaty 11.
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See also: Indigenous Labour in Alberta; Systemic Racism in Alberta