Beverley Jacobs

Personal Life

In 1965, Beverley K. Jacobs (Gowehgyuseh) was born into the Bear Clan of the Mohawk Nation on the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, in Southern Ontario. Her traditional name, Gowehgyuseh means “She’s visiting." She is the mother of Ashley and grandmother of Nicholas, Tessa, Bryson and Kenna.

Education

After spending some time working as a legal secretary, Jacobs decided to pursue a career as a lawyer. She juggled law school with the responsibilities of being a single mother. Often because she had no alternative, Jacobs brought her daughter Ashley, then eight, to class with her.

The only Aboriginal student in her first year, Jacobs started the First Nations Law Students Society on campus. She graduated from Windsor, then obtained her Master’s degree in Law from the University of Saskatchewan in 2000.

She is currently working on her PhD at the University of Calgary.

Bear Clan Consulting

After leaving university Jacobs became a consultant, launching her firm Bear Clan Consulting where she dealt with issues such as Bill C-31, Residential Schools, Matrimonial Real Property, and Aboriginal Women’s health issues.

Amnesty International

Jacobs' consulting work led to a project at Amnesty International which changed the course of her life and career. In 2004 she penned the Stolen Sisters Report – a ground-breaking document that exposed the racialized and sexualized violence suffered by Indigenous women in Canada, and led to what would become known and the Sisters In Spirit movement, a movement to pressure government, police and media to pay attention to the growing number of missing and murdered Indigenous woman in Canada and the large number of unsolved cases.

Native Women’s Association of Canada

In 2004 Jacobs entered the world of Indigenous politics, running and winning the election for President of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), largely on her work with families of missing and murdered aboriginal women. Jacobs was re-elected for a second term as President of NWAC in 2006.

As president of NWAC Jacobs’ negotiated $10 million in funding from the federal government to support research into 500 of missing and murdered Indigenous women, to create a national registry, a hotline, and public education programs. Vigils became a hallmark of the Sisters in Spirit movement. Families of the missing and murdered would gather with pictures of their missing children, sometimes lighting candles or releasing balloons all as a means of trying to attract media attention to their cause. Bridget Tolley, an Algonquin woman whose mother was killed by Quebec police in 2001, is credited with pitching the idea of holding vigils as a media strategy to NWAC. In her role as President Jacobs was also in attendance at the 2008 apology from Prime Minister Harper to residential school survivors.

Jacobs chose not to run in the 2009 election. Her own niece had been murdered.

Families of Sisters in Spirit

After Jacobs left NWAC, the Conservative federal government, led by Stephen Harper cancelled the Sisters in Spirit project and said they would not fund any future projects if NWAC used the name Sisters in Spirit in any of its programming.

However families who had met through the Sister in Spirit campaign formed Facebook groups, and stayed in touch, and continued to hold vigils, forming a new social movement. In 2012 alone, 163 vigils were held across Canada. Families also began pushing for a National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered women. Initially the federal conservative government refused to consider an inquiry, but when they were unseated in 2015, the newly governing Liberal Party quickly announced they would hold an inquiry.

Jacobs continued to practice law on a part-time basis. She also completed an interdisciplinary PhD in Law, Sociology and Aboriginal Health at the University of Calgary, Alberta. She remained involved with the movement Families of Sisters in Spirit at the grassroots level and joined the voices advocating for a national inquiry.

Awards/Honours

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