The Sylvia Bacon Scholarship Fund

For Native women of South Dakota, and for the women who raise them.

I don’t ask young women to apply.

That probably sounds backwards for a scholarship.

But a young woman shouldn’t have to find me on her own, or make a case for herself to a stranger. Someone who already knows her, an auntie or an elder, tells me about her. The women who have been beside her all along know what she carries better than a form could ever show me.

And it comes back around. The young women I support go on to mentor other young women in their own communities. I ask for that, though not as a condition of the money. It’s the part I’m most glad about.

I fund two things, and they belong together.

The first is scholarships for young Native women.

The second is the grassroots women’s groups here in South Dakota, the ones teaching Lakota and Dakota and keeping ceremony in practice.

I don’t see those as separate. Those groups are a big part of what makes a young woman strong in the first place.

The groups already doing this work.

I support these groups directly, not just the young women.

This work isn’t mine, and I’m helping where I can.

When a group is glad to be listed here, I’ll introduce it in its own words, with a link to its own site if it has one.

Not yet recorded.No group appears on this page until it has been asked and has said yes. Language and ceremony work is not ours to publish on anyone’s behalf.

If you have someone in mind.

There’s no form, so a letter is fine.

Tell me about her, and if you can, include these things:

Tribally enrolled, or a lineal descendant
How she’s involved in her community
A letter from her about her commitment to her community, and what she hopes it will mean for the people around her
Financial need
A grade point average of 2.5 or higher, if she’s already enrolled
A letter of support from a community leader, or an organization that knows her

Not yet recorded.The award amount, how many are given each year, and when to send a letter.

Who is Sylvia Bacon.

Sylvia Bacon as a younger woman: a black and white studio portrait, dark hair, high-necked top. — Not yet recorded.When either photograph was taken, who took them, and who holds the right to publish them.

Sylvia Bacon in later life: grey hair, wire-rimmed glasses, a dark jacket. — Not yet recorded.When either photograph was taken, who took them, and who holds the right to publish them.

This scholarship is here because of her estate.

She was born in Watertown, South Dakota, in 1931, and graduated from Watertown High School in 1949. She went on to Vassar, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Law. She became the highest-ranking woman in the United States Attorney’s office, was appointed to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in 1970, and was twice considered for the Supreme Court at a time when no woman had ever sat on it. She died in 2023, at 91.

Here to talk, we are here to listen.

If you’re an auntie or an elder with a young woman in mind, please write to me.

Or if you’d just like to know more about what I’m doing here, I’d be glad to hear from you.

If you’d like to help, a gift here does two things at once: it helps a young woman through school, and it helps the groups teaching the language and holding ceremony. This is a small fund with a narrow focus, so a gift of any size makes a difference I can point to.

Not yet recorded.Who to write to and how to reach her, and how a gift is actually made. Until those are filled in there is no way into this fund from this page, which makes them the most urgent thing on it.