For decades now, Ada Deer has been fighting for the rights of American Indians.

The activist and educator has even taken on the powers that be in D.C. to reinstate federal recognition of her own tribe, the Menominee of Wisconsin.

Deer was later named Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior. She is also a long-time advocate for American Indian rights and a distinguished lecturer emerita at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

It seems fitting, then, that the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian asked Deer to speak on social justice Dec. 8. Her talk, entitled “A Path to Social Justice,” gets underway at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and will launch the museum’s first anual Dr. Carlos Montezuma Honororary Lecture. It takes place at the Music Institute of Chicago in Evanston.