Mary Crowe

Mary Crowe was born and raised in Cherokee, NC, and is a member of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee. Mary was raised by social worker parents and eventually helped author the Indian Child Welfare Act. In 1993, she began working with the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and in 1994 founded the Eastern Cherokee Defense League, an economic, social, and environmental organization for the Qualla boundary. Through IEN, Mary works on a national level with Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, the Climate Justice Alliance, and It Takes Roots. In between her activism work, she’s a breast cancer survivor, a widow, and has raised three children. Her children follow in her footsteps as climate and community activists.