'Sko Vote Den!': New mural to encourage high voter turnout from Milwaukee's Native population

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- We are almost two weeks from Election Day.

On Friday, several Native organizations and tribes in Wisconsin came together for a ceremony at Milwaukee's Gerald Ignace Indian Health Center, encouraging Native Americans to get out and vote.

Milwaukee is home to the largest concentration of Native people in the state of Wisconsin.

Friday's cultural gathering served as a reminder of the power the community can have at the polls.

As part of the voter encouragement, a mural by artist Christopher Sweet was unveiled.

The hand-painted piece reads "Vote For Our 7th Generation."

That phrase is a call to action for Native voters in Milwaukee to head to the polls with the future in mind.

"We need to vote for the next seven generations into perpetuity, to protect Mother Earth, the environment, and also to protect the rights of our people," said Anne Egan-Waukau, the urban coordinator with Wisconsin Native Vote.

"The title of the mural is 'Protect Our Future,'" said artist Christopher Sweet. "It's important that our voices are heard now."

The mural will be brought to reservations statewide, encouraging voting and unity.

"The big piece is the jingle dress dancer, and the jingle dress dancer is healing," Egan-Waukau said. "We have a lot of ceremonies, traditional ways for healing, but in order to get the programs to help our people, we need to get them out to vote."

Wisconsin Conservation Voices and Wisconsin Native Vote are working to ensure tribal voter protections and raise the Native voter turnout this year.

"The Native vote was huge in the last major election," Egan-Waukau said. "I think we're going to grow. We've grown it throughout the whole state and all the reservations that we've been working with."

The organization uses a unique catchphrase to get people at the polls... the yard signs read, "Sko Vote Den."

"People are like, what does that mean? And we're like, let's go vote, okay?" Egan-Waukau explained. "The Indians all know what it means."

Wisconsin Conservation Voices reminds voters that a tribal-issued ID is valid to vote in Wisconsin.

A letter from tribal government is valid proof for in-person voter registration on Election Day.

For more Native voting resources, click here.