Billy Frank Jr. was a Native American environmental leader and treaty rights activist born in 1931 to Willie and Angeline Frank. A Nisqually tribal member, Frank is known specifically for his grassroots campaign for fishing rights on the tribe's Nisqually River, located in Washington state, in the 1960s and 1970s. He is also known for promoting cooperative management of natural resources. The tribal nations in western Washington reserved the right to fish at all their usual and accustomed places in common with all citizens of the United States, and to hunt and gather shellfish in treaties with the U.S. government negotiated in the mid-1850s. But when tribal members tried to exercise those rights off-reservation they were arrested for fishing in violation of state law. Frank Jr. had his first run in with game wardens in 1945 at the age of fourteen. The teenager had been fishing as he always had for salmon, and as he was emptying his net he was accosted by two wardens who shoved his face into the mud as he struggled. The tensions from the declining fish populations in the 1940s had begun to boil over. The unregulated commercial boats and development of hydroelectric equipment had begun to take its toll on the salmon, and the white sportsmen laid the blame at the Native's feet. As the numbers of salmon continued to decline, in 1965 the pressure between Native and non-Native fishermen turned violent as women and children of the Nisqually tribe protested alongside the fishermen and several Natives were bloodied. For Frank Jr. the battle for the salmon was personal, treaty rights had to be recognized for not only the Native right to fish a guaranteed number of the salmon population, but the right to maintain ecosystems that would continue to guarantee a healthy yield of fish year after year. Frank was arrested more than 50 times in the Fish Wars of the 1960s and 1970s because of his intense dedication to the treaty fishing rights cause. The tribal struggle was taken to the courts in U.S. v. Washington, with federal judge George Hugo Boldt issuing a ruling in favor of the native tribes in 1974. The Boldt Decision established the 20 treaty Indian tribes in western Washington as co-managers of the salmon resource with the State of Washington, and re-affirmed tribal rights to half of the harvestable salmon returning to western Washington. What started as a war over numbers has morphed into a fight for conservation and habitat protection. Because of the trail blazing achieved by Frank Jr.'s activism tribes have begun to work more closely with government officials in a joint effort to conserve natural resources. The foundations that Frank Jr. laid, in conjunction with the acknowledgement of tribal rights as defined in their treaties with the United States of America, has allowed the beginnings of a working inter-government partnership between the two groups to develop. Frank was chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, a position he held for more than 30 years. He died on May 5, 2014. In November 2015, President Barack Obama announced that Frank would receive a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. The following month, the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge was renamed in Frank's honor. Billy Frank Jr. was and continues to be an important bridge between Western and Native American societies in a time where environmental sustainability affects us all, regardless of differences in cultural background and beliefs.
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
The Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission was created in 1975 to support the natural resource management activities of the 20 treaty Indian tribes in western Washington. The NWIFC is based in Olympia, Washington, with satellite offices in Forks and Mount Vernon. Frank has chaired the NWIFC since 1981. The commission's 65-person staff supports member tribes in efforts ranging from fish health to salmon management planning and habitat protection. The NWIFC also acts as a forum for tribes to address issues of mutual concern, and as a mechanism for tribes to speak with a unified voice in Washington, D.C.
Titles
Frank has held several different titles his career.
