There were many moments in the life of Bev Jacobs ’85 when the task at hand — fighting for the rights of Indigenous peoples, confronting violence against Indigenous women and girls, inspiring her people to stand together, and educating Canadians about historic and contemporary injustices against Indigenous peoples — seemed too much to bear. 

In those times, she would listen to the words of her ancestors who gave her the strength to keep going. 

“I never backed down. I always felt I had my ancestors with me. I felt I had my mom and grandmother and clan mothers with me and I felt empowered by that,” said Jacobs, a lawyer, and professor from Six Nations who was instrumental in shining a light on the plight of missing and murdered Indigenous women. 

“I learned how to speak up once I found my own voice. When I had to speak out in public, I would call on my ancestors to help me say what I needed to say. I felt I was the source of their message.” 

Jacobs’ professional journey began at Mohawk College where she studied in the Legal Secretarial program. In high school she was considering law school, but a guidance counsellor told her that would be too hard for her. 

Her time at the college is a blur now, she says. She was in an abusive relationship at the time and mother to a baby girl. She just focused on getting through each day. 

After graduating in 1985, Jacobs worked for a number of Hamilton and Brantford lawyers in corporate, family, real estate, and child welfare law. But she found the work of a legal secretary monotonous and knew she could do the work of a lawyer. 

Jacobs’ success at Mohawk College convinced her mother to realize her own dream of going back to school. She studied Community Nursing at Mohawk but died of cancer in 1989, the same year she graduated. 

“When she died, I decided life was too short. I would apply for law school.” 

Jacobs didn’t have a university degree, so she studied in an intensive pre-law program for Indigenous students at the University of Saskatchewan, graduating with the top marks in her class. Then it was off to law school at the University of Windsor with her eight-year-old daughter Ashley in tow. 

Ashley went to law school alongside her mom, doing cartwheels down the hallways and calling the dean by his first name. Law school was emotionally tough for Jacobs and more than once she was on the brink of quitting. 

“I was learning about law being used as a tool of assimilation of our people. It was hard emotionally, spiritually and mentally to stay there every day.” 

Her saving grace was that she was close enough to her Six Nations home and family that she could return for the traditional ceremonies she grew up with. When she told a Confederacy chief that she was close to quitting, “He said not a lot of people are able to learn another people’s way of life and that I should consider it a gift. It helped me to think of it that way.” 

Jacobs says law school really opened her eyes to the horrors of the Indian Act, how property law has been used against Indigenous peoples and how Indigenous sovereignty and laws have been disregarded. 

“I found anger rising in me. I felt I couldn’t practice law because it was used to erase our people.” 

So, after graduating in 1994, Jacobs headed off to the University of Saskatchewan, where she completed a Master of Laws degree, with a focus on Haudenosaunee law. Soon after, she launched Bear Clan Consulting, working on research and policy development across Canada. Also, during this time, she met renowned lawyer, Mary Eberts and articled with her in 2002 and began practicing law in 2003. 

That eventually led her to the groundbreaking work in 2004 with Amnesty International to bring attention to missing and murdered Indigenous women. Stolen Sisters is a report many regard as a turning point in shining the light on violence against Indigenous women. She travelled the country talking to families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and writing their stories included in Amnesty International’s report. That work pushed Jacobs into taking on the role of president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada where she served two terms. 

She was an effective fundraiser, grew the organization from five to 35 staff, and helped foster grassroots advocacy. But she quickly realized that change won’t come at the political level. 

“There was more awareness, more allies and more understanding, that is the positive. But it was all talk, no change.” She couldn’t understand the conflict-driven nature of a male-dominated political system. She was frequently the only woman in the room and pushed buttons to the point a shot was fired into her office and she received death threats. 

Then came the murder of her cousin Tashina in 2008, which only fueled Jacobs’ fury, especially when much of her work was trying to educate parliamentarians about Indigenous history and impacts of colonization and violence on Indigenous women. 

“I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I became too angry. It had become too personal. I felt like I was banging my head against a wall and I was tired.” 

Jacobs, who is married to Patrick Sandy, an ironworker and artist, and is grandmother to four, has since turned her attention to teaching, practicing law at Six Nations and publishing her work. 

She’s finishing her PhD in Indigenous law, health and research methodologies through the University of Calgary and will defend her dissertation this spring. 

And beginning July, 2017, Jacobs returned to the University of Windsor to teach law where she has already earned an equity and human rights award based on the nomination of her first-year students. 

“I love being able to teach what I didn’t learn in law school to young minds who one day could be politicians or Supreme Court justices or Crown Attorneys.” 

Jacobs’ work to bring attention to the heartbreaking issues about missing and murdered women has earned her a Governor General’s Award and recognition for international human rights advocates from the French and German governments. 

The work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and settlements with survivors of residential schools and the Sixties Scoop have the effect of putting the pain and suffering of Indigenous peoples out in the open to be learned from, says Jacobs. 

Her maternal grandmother and all of her siblings were forced in a residential school in Brantford, which Jacobs says broke the bonds of language, ceremony and family connection, effects that are still being felt in her family. 

“Canadians were never taught this. Our people were pushed to the ground but our voices are being heard loud and clear now.” 

By: Meredith MacLeod