Billy Frank Jr., 1931-2014. Photo from Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
We have lost too many great leaders in the past few years
By Tim Giago There is an old adage that “Time Marches On” and as one grows older that old saying becomes ever more relevant. This week we saw the passing of Billy Frank, Jr., a man who stood up for Indian rights when it wasn’t a popular thing to do and by his stubborn defiance of state and federal laws, he brought the fishing rights of the tribes of the Northwest back. We are losing and have lost many of our truly great leaders and Indian Country must turn to a new generation of leaders. The hard scrabble leadership of men like Roger Jourdain, Chairman of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe, Wendell Chino, leader of the Mescalero Apache, and women like Wilma Mankiller, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, leaves us weaker in our struggles for human rights and justice. Jourdain and Chino stood up to be counted when the federal government was about to attack the sovereignty of the Indian Nations with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988. What the government proposed was appalling to these two great leaders and it should have been appalling to every tribal leader in America, but it didn’t turn out that way. The feds wanted to place Indian Nations under the jurisdiction of state governments by forcing them to get permission from the states in the form of gaming compacts that would regulate gaming on their own reservations. Chino and Jourdain fought this new encroachment on Indian rights to the very end, but other tribal leaders could only see the dollar signs and were willing to sell out everyone in order to build a casino. The feds saw the mafia lurking around every tree and they were propagandized by state government officials that if the Indian tribes were given the freedom to regulate their own casinos bad things would befall the state governments. When the Gaming Act finally passed in 1988 it immediately placed the sovereign Indian Nations under the jurisdiction of state governments. A tribe could not build a casino without signing a compact with state governments and the states were free to place all sorts of restrictions upon the tribal governments. The Fort McDowell Apache of Arizona and the Colville Tribe of Washington State told the state governments to “go to hell” and build their casinos the way they wanted and put in as many slot machines and gaming tables as they saw fit. In South Dakota the state government can tell the tribes exactly how many slot machines and other gaming devices they can have in their casinos. I met with Chino and Jourdain in 1987, a full year before the Gaming Act became law, and they were at their wits end about how to stop this act of infringement upon their sovereign rights. But in the end, greed won out and common sense went out of the window and now every Indian tribe in America is under the jurisdiction of the state governments if they want to build a casino. The Navajo Nation held out for many years, but finally gave in a few years ago and placed themselves under the state jurisdiction in order to build their casinos. The Hopi Nation and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe are still holding out. Wilma Mankiller helped to bring the Cherokee Nation into the 20th Century. Her forward thinking and the connections she made outside of Cherokee Country saw the Cherokee Nation move up the economic ladder and to become a true power in Indian Country. Mankiller was a true friend of mine and was kind enough to write a comment on the dust jacket of my book, Children Left Behind. She died much too young and still had plenty of fight in her when she became ill. There are so many more great leaders that have made the journey to the Spirit World in the past few years that it would take several pages to name them all. We miss these great leaders and pray that a new batch of leaders will step forward to lead us and guide us through the difficult years that still lie ahead for Native Nations and Native People. (Tim Giago, Nanwica Kciji, can be reached at editor@nsweekly.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
Join the Conversation