Issue 001 · May 10, 2026
The Bad River Band's governing board voted this week to formally recognize May 5 as a Tribal Day of Awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous women and relatives, and authorized the creation of a new tribal task force to address the crisis. The Wisconsin Examiner covered the vote, though the story would benefit from a direct quote from a Bad River council member or advocate. This is a meaningful institutional step: a task force with a home community mandate carries more weight than a state-level working group, and it grounds the national MMIW conversation in the specific geography and kinship networks of Mashkiiziibii.
Issue 001 · May 10, 2026
ICT reports on the third annual Walk for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People hosted by the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program at the University of Alaska Anchorage, drawing relatives, friends, and supporters to raise visibility for Alaska Native victims. The Alaska MMIW crisis has its own distinct geography and jurisdictional tangle, with vast rural distances and limited law enforcement presence compounding the federal gaps that affect tribal communities everywhere. The walk is a community act of witness, and ICT names it as such.
Background
· 2026
· Wisconsin Examiner
On April 22, 2026, the Bad River Tribal Council voted to formalize May 5 as a Bad River Tribal Day of Awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous women and relatives and authorized the creation of a tribal task force. Gina Jensen, who represents the tribe's police commission, noted that the murder rate for Indigenous women is ten times the national average. More than fifty community members walked the annual MMIW/R route inside the reservation that week, the route marked by red dresses on garden stakes.