Whitworth’s Hailie Henderson is letting her voice be heard

The film opens with the reverberating thunder of drumbeats and the rising chant of Native voices.

Then a young woman speaks.

“Never did we think our traditions would be overrun ….”

The voice belongs to one of the film’s directors, Whitworth University freshman Hailie Henderson, a member of the Blackfeet Nation.

The film is “Rising Voices,” and it debuted last month at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula.

Produced in conjunction with the MAPS Media Lab, a statewide outreach program that brings media arts workshops to students in rural and reservation communities across Montana, the film showcases Rising Voices, the poetry club at Browning High School.

At Whitworth, Henderson talked about her experience with the poetry club and making the movie. She said the club was the idea of high school librarian, Amy Conrey Andreas.

“Originally, it was just an informal group. We’d get together and critique each other’s pieces,” she said. “Then Tahj Kjelland (a visiting instructor from MAPS) approached us about putting together a video.”

Shot over the course of a few days last year, the film features the students sharing their poetry with each other and with the community.

For Henderson, it was an opportunity to highlight cultural traditions that are so important to her.

“Making the film made me feel more connected to my culture,” she said.

A line from her poem she reads in the film resonates.

“Some of our old ways may have died out, but we’re still here.”

“I wanted to feature the drum school and us singing in our native tongue,” she said. “It’s not a written language – it’s spoken, an oral tradition.”

Throughout the film students share their often vulnerable words.

“As dawn arrives I am a man between the land and sky. Built, tore down, reborn,” reads Cody Little Plume.

And the students talk about what Rising Voices means to them.

“Being Native inspires me,” Ali Archambault said. “I’m different from the rest of the world, so why not write it down on a piece of paper and express myself through it.”

It’s a difference Henderson feels keenly at Whitworth.

“I was raised on the Blackfeet Reservation” she said. “Growing up, all I really knew were Native people. It was difficult to leave and go to college.”

That’s not to say she’s never left the reservation. During her sophomore year, she traveled to Washington, D.C., and met Michelle Obama.

“We met her at Sidwell Friends School,” Henderson said. “She asked us about our struggles and gave us some advice.”

Though she’s added poetry and filmmaking to her résumé, Henderson plans to study nursing and return to the reservation following graduation.

“When I realized how bad our health care was, nursing was the natural choice,” she said.

In the film, the camera pans across the faces of the Rising Voices poetry club and Henderson’s voice rings out.

“Restoring our nation to its previous glory won’t take long.”

Elders in the crowd applaud.

Last month, on the train on the way to the film festival, she ran into Blackfeet tribal chairman Harry Barnes.

“He said, ‘This is what we need – the only way we’re going to be heard is by you guys doing stuff like this,” Henderson said.

She took his words to heart.

Earlier this month, she met with Whitworth president Beck Taylor to discuss ways to make the university feel more welcoming and comfortable for Native students.

She’d like to introduce her fellow students to her cultural traditions like smudging or making ribbon dresses as well as foods like fry bread or berry soup. Henderson said the meeting went well.

“We’re planning to set up possible lectures to talk about the Missing Murdered Indigenous Women so that students may become more aware of where we come from,” she said.

The final line from her poem in the film sums up her determination.

“We’re. Still. Here.”

As, the sun began to set at Whitworth and Henderson said, “We still have a voice. We just want to be heard.”