Media Contact

Janna Farley, jfarley@aclu.org

July 8, 2020

Candi Brings Plenty, the ACLU of South Dakota’s Indigenous justice organizer, has been selected as one of Advocate magazine’s 2020 Champions of Pride.

Each year, the Advocate‘s ‘Champions of Pride’ issue profiles LGBTQ+ activists, artists, politicians and others from each state who are changing the world for the better. Each Champion is an example of how LGBTQ+ people can make a difference in local communities and beyond.

As the Indigenous justice organizer, Brings Plenty works to build the ACLU’s public education and advocacy programs through coalition-building, leadership development, communication and lobbying and leads the ACLU’s efforts surrounding the First Amendment right to protest the Keystone XL pipeline, strengthening voting accessibility to tribal communities and Two Spirit visibility work.

Brings Plenty – who identifies as Two Spirit, a modern umbrella term for indigenous people that recognizes there are multiple genders and that sexuality can be fluid – has a history of making change happen. As a Lakota cultural practitioner and through her spiritual activism, Brings Plenty works to bring her medicine to the Oyaté and advocates especially for the empowerment and visibility of Two Spirit warriors to reclaim their walk of life in the sacred circle.

Brings Plenty joined the ACLU of South Dakota in 2019.

About the ACLU of South Dakota

The American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota is a non-partisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of civil liberties and civil rights. The ACLU of South Dakota is part of a three-state chapter that also includes North Dakota and Wyoming. The team in South Dakota is supported by staff in those states.

The ACLU believes freedoms of press, speech, assembly, and religion, and the rights to due process, equal protection and privacy, are fundamental to a free people.  In addition, the ACLU seeks to advance constitutional protections for groups traditionally denied their rights, including people of color, women, and the LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit communities. The ACLU of South Dakota carries out its work through selective litigation, lobbying at the state and local level, and through public education and awareness of what the Bill of Rights means for the people of South Dakota.

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