Rebecca Nagle is a Native American activist, writer, public speaker. She is a citizen of the

Cherokee Nation The Cherokee Nation ( or ) is the largest of three list of federally recognized tribes, federally recognized tribes of Cherokees in the United States. It includes people descended from members of the Cherokee Nation (1794–1907), Old Cheroke ...

. Nagle is one of the founders of FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, an organization led by artists and activists dedicated to promoting a culture of consent. Nagle has also served as a coordinator of the event "Pink Loves Consent."

Career

In 2012, Rebecca Nagle and Hannah Brancato launched a website called "Pink Loves Consent," which coincided with the Victoria's Secret fashion show. The website was designed to resemble the Victoria's Secret website and featured underwear with anti-rape slogans such as "Consent is Sexy," "No Means No," and "Ask First." None of the items on the website were for sale; instead, it provided information about rape education. However, on December 4, 2012, lawyers representing Victoria's Secret forced the website to be taken down, citing customer confusion as the reason for their action. As a part of Nagle's project to create a national monument for sexual assault survivors, FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture released a giant floating poem in the Reflecting Pool in front of the Washington National Monument. The floating poem read: "I Can't Forget What Happened But No One Else Remembers." Alongside Hannah Brancato, co-founder of Force, Nagle created The Monument Quilt to establish “a public healing space by and for survivors of rape and abuse”. Over 1700 sexual assault survivors have contributed segments to this quilt. In 2019, Nagle hosted the podcast '' This Land'' produced by

Crooked Media Crooked Media is an American progressive political media company. It was founded in 2017 by Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor, all former top Barack Obama staffers and co-hosts of the '' Keepin' It 1600'' podcast. Dan Pfeiffer, also a ...

, which was nominated for

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Foster Peabody, George Peabody, honor what are described as the most powerful, enlightening, and in ...

in 2021. The podcast focused on the case of '' Carpenter v. Murphy'', a pending Supreme Court case to determine the land rights of various Indigenous groups in

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

. Nagle has been critical of Massachusetts Democratic senator

Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Ann Warren (née Herring; born June 22, 1949) is an American politician and former law professor who is the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States senator from the state of Massachusetts, serving since 2013. A mem ...

's claims of Cherokee ancestry, emphasizing that " ibal affiliation and kinship determine Cherokee identity — not race or biology." She has spoken out about the issue in numerous print, television, and online media outlets.

Recognition

In 2012 and 2013, Nagle was named one of Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People. Nagle was also named one of the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development's 2016 Native American 40 Under 40. Nagle was named the 2016 Sondheim Art Prize recipient, and she was listed on the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 2015 100 List for innovators and thought leaders. Nagle won the 2020

American Mosaic Journalism Prize The American Mosaic Journalism Prize is a journalism prize awarded annually to two freelance journalists "for excellence in long-form, narrative, or deep reporting on stories about underrepresented and/or misrepresented groups in the present Amer ...

for work on the podcast ''This Land'' and the

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

article “Half the land in Oklahoma could be returned to Native Americans. It should be.” In 2025, she won the Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize.

Works

Personal life

Nagle lives in

Tahlequah, Oklahoma Tahlequah ( ; , ) is a city in Cherokee County, Oklahoma located at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. It is part of the Green Country region of Oklahoma and was established as a capital of the 19th-century Cherokee Nation in 1839, as p ...

. Her sister is the attorney and playwright

Mary Kathryn Nagle Mary Kathryn Nagle is a playwright and an attorney specializing in tribal sovereignty of Native nations and peoples. She was born in Oklahoma City, OK, and is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. She previously served as the ...

. Nagle identifies as a two–spirit woman and is an enrolled citizen of the

. She is a survivor of child sexual abuse. Nagle is directly descended from 19th-century Cherokee leaders

Major Ridge The Ridge, later known as Major Ridge (c. 1771 – 22 June 1839; known in Cherokee as ''Nunnehidihi'', and later ''Ganundalegi'' []) was a Cherokee leader, a member of the tribal council, and a lawmaker. As a warrior, he fought in the Cheroke ...

and John Ridge, who signed the Treaty of New Echota, which caused the

Trail of Tears The Trail of Tears was the forced displacement of about 60,000 people of the " Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850, and the additional thousands of Native Americans and their black slaves within that were ethnically cleansed by the U ...

for the

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

people. She uses this ancestry to highlight points in parts of her podcast, '' This Land''.

References

External links

This Land podcast
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nagle, Rebecca Living people Cherokee Nation women writers Cherokee Nation writers American LGBTQ rights activists Native American activists Oklahoma Democrats LGBTQ Native Americans Two-spirit people Year of birth missing (living people) Crooked Media 21st-century American writers 21st-century American women writers 21st-century Native American women Writers from Oklahoma Activists from Oklahoma People from Tahlequah, Oklahoma 21st-century Native American writers American women podcasters American political podcasters American women's rights activists Cherokee Nation women Native American people from Oklahoma LGBTQ people from Oklahoma