White Plume was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation and was a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe.
[1] Her father was John Baptiste Reshaw, and her mother was Bernice Ione (Swallow) Stone.
[2] In 1973, she was one of the first persons to join the American Indian Movement's Wounded Knee Occupation, which took place on her reservation in southwest South Dakota.
[2] White Plume founded Owe Aku (Bring Back the Way) in 1999, an advocacy group dedicated to cultural preservation and protecting Lakota treaty rights through nonviolent direct action.
[2] In 2015, she was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against Cameco to stop it from expanding its operations at Crow Butte.