LADONNA HUMPHREY
Standing for the Missing: LaDonna’s Fight to End the MMIW Crisis
For LaDonna Humphrey, the fight to bring visibility and justice to the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) is not just part of her work — it is deeply personal.
Raised in Oklahoma, a state with one of the highest numbers of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States, LaDonna grew up surrounded by stories that too often ended in silence. These were stories of daughters, sisters, mothers, and friends who vanished without a trace. Stories that rarely made the news. Stories that, far too often, were dismissed, ignored, or forgotten.
Those roots shaped her calling. They instilled in her a profound understanding of how systemic neglect, historical injustice, and cultural erasure intersect to create a crisis that continues to devastate Native communities today. And they sparked a lifelong determination to make sure these women’s stories are no longer overlooked.
LaDonna’s advocacy is fueled by that sense of purpose. Through investigative journalism, documentary filmmaking, public speaking, and relentless storytelling, she works to shine a national spotlight on the MMIW epidemic — bringing attention to the individual lives behind the statistics and fighting for accountability from the systems that have too often failed them.
Her work is about more than raising awareness; it’s about building momentum for change. By amplifying voices from Indigenous communities, supporting families searching for answers, and holding institutions to account, LaDonna is part of a growing movement determined to turn grief into justice and silence into action.
Every name matters. Every story deserves to be told. And until the disappearances and deaths stop — until every woman is accounted for and every family has answers — LaDonna Humphrey will continue to fight, speak, and stand in the gap.
A Few of the Faces of the MMIW Crisis
Resources to learn more about the MMIW Crisis
Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Crisis
Epidemic of Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
LaDonna grew up surrounded by stories of Native women and girls who vanished without a trace, their cases too often dismissed or ignored. Cases like Donna Kay Dirteater Kingston, an 18-year-old Cherokee woman who disappeared from Tahlequah in May 1984 and has never been found. Or Martha Bell Kadayso, a 28-year-old Comanche woman who vanished from Anadarko in August 1985 and remains missing to this day. These names — and the countless others like them — are not forgotten by LaDonna. They are the reason she does this work.
Every story represents a daughter, a sister, a mother, a friend — and a community still searching for answers decades later. LaDonna uses her platform as an investigative journalist, author, and advocate to bring these stories into the light, to hold systems accountable, and to demand justice where silence has reigned for far too long. Her work is fueled by a simple but powerful belief: that every woman matters, every disappearance deserves investigation, and every family deserves closure. Until every missing woman is found — and every question is answered — LaDonna will not stop.