Cultural Survival’s community includes people from all walks of life, with beautiful stories to tell of your own about why you decided to become an advocate for Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Sharing these stories further connects our community, provides much-needed solidarity and validation to our staff and partners on the ground, and helps us inspire others to join our movement. We are excited to spotlight members and former interns of our community and highlight your contributions and perspectives through our Cultural Survival Spotlight series. 

Marshall Kirkpatrick, Cultural Survival member

Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

I’m an earth-loving anti-authoritarian with a few decades of both radical political activism and technology entrepreneurship.  The tech work has been a way to support my family and to Robin Hood a whole lot of learning about strategy and effective action.  In 2025, I’m boosting sustainability-minded organizations as a consultant and writing a daily newsletter at EarthCatalyst.co.

When did you first learn about Cultural Survival?

I discovered the Cultural Survival Quarterly magazine 30 years ago when I was in high school, visiting the University of Oregon library. I found it super inspiring and I thought “someday I want to do work to help that organization.

What motivated you to become a member of the Cultural Survival community? 

I re-watch the beautiful video “Amplifying Indigenous Voices: Cultural Survival’s Community Media Program” whenever I want to get pumped up.

Cultural Survival advocates for Indigenous Peoples’ rights and supports their self-determination. Why is this cause important to you?

I love the earth, I love diversity, I love freedom,  justice, and learning.  I was born on the holiday known as Columbus Day, in the bicentennial year of the United States.  There’s a real contrast there!  I believe that supporting Indigenous rights and self-determination is both intrinsically right and in the interests of both humanity and the rest of the earth. The four Rs core to Indigenous worldviews (per LaDonna Harris in ‘04) really resonate with me too: relationships, responsibility, reciprocity, and redistribution. It’s hard to find the right words for it, it just feels really important.

Do you have a connection or interest in a particular country/region or one of our programs?

I love a lot of it, but the website archives are one of my favorites. I try to search inside those archives whenever I can, along with the archives of 9 other collected Indigenous websites, as part of my collection of custom search engines at marshallk.com/cse. I love the footer on each website in the archives: “Our website houses close to five decades of content and publishing. Any content older than 10 years is archival and Cultural Survival does not necessarily agree with the content and word choice today.” That’s an awesome mix of transparency and growth mindset!

Is there anything else you would like to share with us?

I am deeply appreciative of the opportunity to support Cultural Survival. And I highly recommend gift subscriptions to CSQ as holiday gifts!

Are you a former Cultural Survival intern or a passionate member of our community? We’d be honored to hear and share your story!