Beyond Red Power:
The Alternative Activism of Dorothy Maquabeak Francis

by Chelsea Horton

About: The 1960s and 70s were volatile decades during which Aboriginal people across Canada arose as an increasingly vocal, and sometimes militant, political force. This paper explores the alternative activist approach of Dorothy Maquabeak Francis, a prominent Aboriginal Bahá’í who worked tirelessly over five decades to promote and maintain Aboriginal culture and spirituality and to foster heightened understanding and unity between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal groups. Francis’s life suggests that we must broaden our conceptions of activism to encompass both the grassroots and the spiritual, thus complicating our understandings of what has for too long been characterized as the “Red Power era.”