Street Roots • Jan. 1-7, 2016
“There was six of us
that actually kept going
back to jail,” Frank Jr.
once recalled. “We kept defying the state of
Washington and the state judges. These
sportsmen were shooting at üs down at the
mouth of the river. You could hear them
spraying the boat.”
B IL L Y F R A N K J R ., f r o m p a g e 1 2
The Boldt Decision
After years of demonstrations, fish-ins and
arrests, plus some help from actor Marlon
Brando, a breakthrough finally occurred. In
1974. The notoriously conservative Judge
George Boldt delivered a ground-breaking
decision in favor of native fishermen in U.S. v.
Washington. In 1969, Judge Belloni in Oregon
had ruled that tribes were entitled to a “fair
share” of the fish runs. Now Judge Boldt
ruled that a “fair share” meant a full 50
percent of all harvestable fish belonged to the
tribes. Boldt also ruled that tribes had a right
to self-regulate their fisheries, and the right
to co-mánage natural resources.
The second phase of US v. Washington was
another victory for the tribes. In 1980, Judge
Orrick ruled that the government’s duty to
protect Native fishing rights is also a duty to
provide suitable salmon habitat. Sixteen
businesses supported an appeal of the
decision until Frank Jr. convinced the
National Congress of American Indians to
retaliate with a boycott. Mike Berry, president
of Seafirst Bank, later described that legal
action as kicking over a hornet’s nest. The
companies backed down and were persuaded
to join a new mediation and dispute
resolution initiative called the Northwest
. Renewable Resources Center.
According to Charles Wilkinson, a law
professor at the University of Colorado, “You
can’t understand American justice fully
without understanding the Boldt Decision. It
is that paramount. It holds that high a place
in our legal system and in our history and in
our collective national consciousness.”
Wilkinson continues, “This is American
justice at its absolute highest: where you have
established, wealthy, vested interests, and
poor people — dispossessed people who have
nothing to hang their hat on other than a
treaty 120 years earlier that many are saying
is outmoded.”
But the backlash from white fishermen was
swift. Slade Gorton, Washington’s Attorney
General, fueled the fire by promising he
would overturn the Boldt decision at the
Page 13
Commentary
Supreme C ourt Within weeks, 700 people
marched in front of the U.S. Courthouse in
Tacoma, parking their boats on trailers, and
hanging an effigy of Judge Boldt from a tree.
Commercial fishermen declared “reverse
discrimination” and called themselves “the
forgotten majority.” Multiple assaults were
documented against officers enforcing
restrictions on white fishermen, and their
patrol boats were rammed. One gillnetter
commented, “It was kind of a shock to realize
we were going to have to share this with
somebody else.”
Attorney General Slade Gorton argued
before the state Supreme Court that the
Boldt decision was racially biased in favor of
Native Americans in violation of the 14th
Amendment - the law that freed African
slaves. The state Supreme Court agreed with
him, and held that the Department of
Fisheries could not follow the federal ruling
without violating the equal rights of non-
Indians.
In the meantime, Frank Jr. and Adams
traveled to Portland for the first convening of
the Puget Sound tribes as they hammered
out a plan to manage their fisheries. The
original conception of what would become
the Fisheries Commission was exceedingly
narrow and did not please the renegade
fishermen.
“I told 'em I was tired of having , the treaty
fishermen treated as a criminal class - that
wasn’t the purpose or intention of U.S. v.
Washington - it was to improve management
of resources,” Adams explains.
“I said, just look at your charts - they’re
all directed towards whose gonna arrest the
Indian fishermen now. And I tore the
charts,” Adams said with a laugh. “I told 'em
when I tore the charts down, you’re gonna
have to start all over.”
As the first chairman of the new Northwest
Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC), Frank
Jr. was curt in his dismissal of the state’s
Supreme Court opinion, calling it “plainly
rooted in racism and dedicated to the
proposition of white supremacy.”
The NWIFC responded by demanding the
federal government assume control of the
state fisheries. On Sept. 1,1977 Judge Boldt
did just that, sending in U.S. marshals from
around the country.
But the federal government also took other
steps to defuse the anger of white fishermen
- they reduced the tribe’s share of fish by 5
percent, and later recommended a new deal
that reduced the tribal allocation even further
and proposed to replace ancestral fishing
grounds with smaller commercial
management zones managed by the tribes,
while asking tribes to give up commercial
fishing for steelhead altogether - which was
highly coveted by sports fishermen.
The Boldt Decision was later upheld in the
U.S. Supreme Court in July 1979, and some
of the anger began to fade. In addition to
upholding the native right to fish, the court
highlighted “the state’s extraordinary
machinations in resisting the decree.”
According to the court, “except for some
Billy Frank Jr.’s Legacy
In 2014, Governor Jay Inslee signed a law that helped
overturn convictions prior to the 1971 Boldt decision.
“I’m thankful Billy was here to see the 2014 Legislature pass
a bill helping to overturn convictions trom treaty ptolesLs."
In-dee said. “Billy was right oil this issue and the state owed
this gesture of justice to him and others who jeopaidizod their
B»ertv to fight foi treaty rights."
■ Within the past five years, some of the world's largest
demolitions of hydro-dams have taken place in Washington
State largely due to this i arliei movement for indigenous
■If-deterniination. Billy Fiank Jr. was tim e to celebrate the
removal of Ihe Elwha Dam in 2013. Two years earlier, the
IjmdiF 1 lam oil the White Salmon Fiver had been the largest
ever removed in the United States.
In a statem ent on the passing ot Billy Frank Jr., Paul Lumley
of the Colutnhia Kivei Inter-Tubal Pish Commission wrote.
“His impacts knew no boundaries and were often felt from the
Breams ot the Pacific Northwest to the halls of Washington
D.C. Frank Jr. was a living icon whose legacy will he seen in
every fish return, every tubal fishery, .and every battle for
those resources that has yet to be fought”
desegregation cases ... the district court has
faced the most concerted official and private
efforts to frustrate a decree of a federal court
witnessed in this century.”
Since the Boldt decision, Frank Jr. and his
allies recognized that protecting salmon
habitat would be the next major issue facing
fishermen.
Since the high-point of the fish-ins the
battle lines have included everything from
logging companies to hydro-electric dams, and
from poorly designed roads and culverts to
the all-encompassing threat of climate change.
Since the recent undoing of the crude oil
export ban, oil trains pose an even bigger
threat to safety and watershed restoration
across the region.
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