Lorelei DeCora

Lorelei DeCora, also known as Lorelei DeCora Means, is a Native American nurse and civil rights activist, born in 1954 on the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska. She is an enrolled citizen of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and a descendant of the Minnecojou Lakota. She trained in nursing at the University of South Dakota, where she earned an associate degree in 1981, and at South Dakota State University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in 1986. She is known for her part in the American Indian Movement occupation of Wounded Knee, where she helped run the volunteer medical clinic, and for co-founding Women of All Red Nations. As a nurse she worked to open the Porcupine Clinic on the Pine Ridge Reservation, the first community-owned and operated clinic on a tribal reservation, and later helped bring about Diabetes Talking Circles, a culturally grounded education method for Native people living with diabetes. She worked as a registered nurse at the Indian Health Service hospital in Rosebud, South Dakota. She received the Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership Award in 1993. This entry records what she did and what is reported about her; it is not medical advice.