Vernon Masayesva

Executive Director

Executive Director
Vernon Masayesva

Vernon Masayesva is the Executive Director of Black Mesa Trust, a Hopi Leader of the Coyote Clan and a former Chairman of the Hopi Tribal Council from the village of Hotevilla, one of the oldest continuously inhabited human settlement in the Americas in Arizona.

Masayesva received his B.A. degree from Arizona State University in Political Science and a Masters of Arts from Central Michigan University in 1970. He returned to Black Mesa of the Hotevilla Bacavi Community School, the first Indian controlled school on Hopi as the lead educator of the school systems. In 1984, he was elected to the Hopi Tribal Council and then served as Chairman from 1989. He immersed himself in the tangled intricacies of the mining on Black Mesa and the Hopi – Navajo land dispute, and is widely respected on and off the reservation.

In 1998, he founded the Black Mesa Trust and currently serves as its Executive Director. Vernon is an international speaker on the subject of Water and is honored among many scientists, physicists and water researchers including renown author and water researcher Dr. Masaru Emoto from Japan.  Among other things, he is beginning a serious study of Hopi symbols and metaphors to understand who he is and what he can do to help his people lay a vision of a future Hopi society. As a result of his commitment to preserving our water, former President William Clinton honored him as an “Environmental Hero.” Charles Wilkinson, a distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Colorado said, “You will gain a strong sense of history, of millennia, from listening to Vernon, but my guess is you will also see something else-the future-for Vernon embodies personal qualities and philosophical attitudes that can serve our whole society well in the challenging years that lie ahead.”

“All is born of water….All is sustained by water” ~ Vernon Masayesva

Featured Keynote Speaker and Educator

The University of Arizona

7th ICCS International Conference & Gathering of the Elders

The Parliament of World Religions

Hopi Elder Youth Conference

The Faces of Water Conference

HADO School Japan

Voices for Water – Sacred Fire Foundation

Gene Autry Museum, Los Angeles – Power Paths Premiere and Energy Gathering

Dreamers Conference – Sacred Water Trust

Gardens for Humanity – 2007 Visionary Award

https://www.gardensforhumanity.org/Legacy/visionaries/pages/2007/masa.html

To book Vernon as a speaker for your event contact Beky Masayesva kuuyi@aol.com
*Because of covid guidelines Vernon will be available via zoom only at this time.

 

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ph081362– Mesa–6/18/03GF–Hopi Vernon Masayeswa, Chairman of the Black Mesa Trust, and in alliance with the National Resource Defense Council, began challenging the water studies that showed no significant impact to the Navajo Aquifer from Black Mesa’s mining. “The fact is we turned something sacred, our water, into a commodity that you sell, this is where our water problems began,” said Masayeswa. (Photo by Gail Fisher/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Vernon