Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC

Sounds.

Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast here on the BBC World Service.

I'm Louis Adaggo and today I'm taking you back to 1970 and the return of a sacred lake to a community of Native Americans

in the southern United States six decades after it was taken by the US government.

I've been talking to Native American campaigner Laura Harris and her mother

Laudona Harris who with her senator husband helped the people of Tauspueblo win back

the Blue Lake.

The return of the lake was the first time in Indian land since the Mayflower came over was returned to the Indian so it was very historical and

It's just a beautiful lake this beautiful blue water and it was their story of origin that tells people that they came from that lake and it was returning their soul for them.

Laddona Harris and her husband Fred were one of the first mixed-race couples in Washington.

He was a senator for their home state of Oklahoma.

She was half-Kamanchi Native American, which was why their daughter Laura says when the people

of Taos Pueblo came to them for help, they listened.

The way the Taos leaders described the sacredness of that lake and the importance of it to their well-being and their future

really resonated with my parents.

They had already worked in the civil rights movement.

...