Albert White Hat

He was active in traditional Lakota spiritual life. Rosebud Sioux Tribal President Cyril Scott called him "a great teacher" and "spiritual leader." White Hat spoke at conferences and gatherings, including the 2008 "Planning for Seven Generations" conference in Boulder, Colorado, and was well known on the powwow circuit. A "Lakota Documentaries" video by Don Moccasin (1948–2009) features Albert White Hat speaking about the survival of the Lakota language, in Lakota with English language subtitles.

White Hat spent twenty-five years teaching the Lakota language at Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, and became the head of the Sinte Gleska Lakota Studies Department." He developed a teaching method that uses extensive examples from the culture of the Brule Lakota, and became known as a scholar of the language. He would teach Lakota culture to "both tribal members and non-Native Americans." He has been quoted as saying, "When we teach a language to a student, we should develop in that student another heart and another mind." He assembled his notes into a book in 1999, Reading and Writing the Lakota Language. He was the "first native Lakota speaker to publish a Lakota textbook and glossary."

After graduating from St. Francis Jesuit Mission School, he held various jobs. White Hat pushed for instruction in the Lakota language in the Todd County, South Dakota school district when his children entered school in the 1960s. Lakota language was not a part of the South Dakota state curriculum at the time. Eventually he learned to create his own lesson plans, and became a Lakota language teacher himself. He became chair of the "Committee for the Preservation of the Lakota Language" in 1982.

Albert White Hat (November 18, 1938 – June 13, 2013) was a teacher of the Lakota language, and an activist for Sičháŋǧu Lakȟóta traditional culture. He translated the Lakota language for Hollywood movies, including the 1990 movie Dances with Wolves, and created a modern Lakota orthography and textbook.