Nicholas Black Elk (Heȟáka Sápa), born in December 1863 along the Little Powder River in present-day Wyoming, was a revered Oglala Lakota holy man, warrior, and visionary. A second cousin to the famed war leader Crazy Horse, Black Elk participated in key moments of Native American resistance, including the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Wounded Knee Massacre. As a youth, he received a powerful vision that marked him as a medicine man (wičháša wakȟáŋ), a role he carried with deep spiritual conviction. His experience in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, which took him to Europe, expanded his perspective but did not diminish his commitment to his people. His life and visions were chronicled in Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt, bringing his story and Indigenous wisdom to a wider world.

In 1904, after the death of his first wife, Black Elk converted to Catholicism, was baptized as Nicholas, and became a devoted catechist in the Catholic Church. He remained active as a spiritual leader among the Lakota, guiding his community both in the Christian faith and in traditional Lakota ways. Over the course of his life, he is believed to have helped bring over 400 people into the Catholic Church through baptism and instruction. Far from abandoning his culture, Black Elk integrated his Christian beliefs with his Indigenous spirituality—praying with a rosary in one hand and a sacred pipe in the other. This profound unity of faith and culture has made him an emblem of reconciliation and spiritual harmony.

On October 20, 2017, the Vatican officially recognized Nicholas Black Elk as a Servant of God, the first step in the Catholic Church’s process of canonization.