She then joined her husband, Henry Roe Cloud, and helped administer the American Indian Institute of Wichita, Kansas for twenty-five years.

Elizabeth Georgiana Bender (native name: Equay Zaince)[Notes 1] was born on April 2, 1887[Notes 2] on the White Earth Indian Reservation in northwestern Minnesota to Pay show de o quay (Mary née Razor or Razier), of the Mississippi Chippewa band and Albertus Bliss Bender, a German immigrant.

In 1904, they were placed in separate houses near Boston, which allowed them to spend time together, as well as making a trip to watch their brother Chief play baseball.

[16][19] During this same time frame, she attended the Fourth Annual Conference of the Society of American Indians held between October 6 and 11, 1914 in Madison, Wisconsin.

[14] The two immediately began a relationship, which continued even after Bender finished her studies at Hampton and went to teach at Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1915.

[24] The couple made their home in Wichita, where Elizabeth worked at the American Indian Institute (AII), serving as matron and financial manager.

[27] In 1931, Henry took a job with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and began traveling as an investigator researching conditions, such as education, health and poverty, among Native American communities.

[31] Elizabeth resigned from her duties at AII in 1934, but continued to live in Wichita so that the children could finish their schooling and herself took graduate courses at the University of Kansas.

[42] In regard to the last item, Roe Cloud traveled over 22,000 miles over the next two years assessing conditions for tribes in twenty-two states and the Territory of Alaska.

She had directed a two-week summer strategy workshop, held in Brigham City, Utah in 1951 and began working as a co-director, with D'Arcy McNickle for the American Indian Development Project.

[43] Roe Cloud used her voice as an advocate for indigenous people, arguing that though Native Americans could learn self-sufficiency, the government had to cease efforts to victimize tribes by usurping their power, their natural resources, and their customs.

In part, the plan called for the government to speed up its efforts to help tribes eliminate poverty and illiteracy, provide adequate health and resource safeguards, and allow Native communities the autonomy to manage their own affairs once they had shown an ability to do so.

[46] When Helen Peterson became the executive director of NCAI in 1953, Roe Cloud helped her transition into the job and took her to reservations throughout Indian country to make assessments of the various tribes and establish networking contacts.

[50] Her ability to straddle two worlds, during the contentious decades of the Indian termination policies, allowed her to serve as a role model for generations which followed her activism.