Who is Billy Frank Jr.?: A Guide

For years, as Chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, Billy Frank Jr. wrote a column called Being Frank.From September 1986 to May 2014, these columns ran in NWIFC publications and newspapers across the Pacific Northwest. His words document the challenges that tribes faced as they exercised their treaty rights, fought to responsibly manage fisheries, and raised their voices against the loss of salmon habitat.The political players and news headlines changed over the years, but Billy's message remained the same: We must recover wild salmon populations to levels that can sustain harvest. We are losing habitat faster than it can be restored, and hatchery programs are essential to make up for the lost and damaged habitat.All proceeds from the sale of Tell the Truth go to the Billy Frank Jr. Salmon Forever Fund, managed by Salmon Defense.

Billy Frank Jr. was an early participant in the fight for tribal fishing rights during the 1960s. Roughed up, belittled, and handcuffed on the riverbank, he emerged as one of the most influential Northwest Indians in modern history. His efforts helped bring about the 1974 ruling by Federal Judge George H. Boldt affirming Northwest tribal fishing rights and allocating half the harvestable catch to them. Today, he continues to support Indian country and people by working to protect salmon and restore the environment.Where the Salmon Run tells the life story of Billy Frank Jr., from his father's influential tales, through the difficult and contentious days of the Fish Wars, to today. Based on extensive interviews with Billy, his family, close advisors, as well as political allies and former foes, and the holdings of Washington State's cultural institutions, we learn about the man behind the legend, and the people who helped him along the way.

In 1974 Federal Judge George H. Boldt issued one of the most sweeping rulings in the history of the Pacific Northwest, affirming the treaty rights of Northwest tribal fishermen and allocating to them 50 percent of the harvestable catch of salmon and steelhead. Among the Indians testifying in Judge Boldt's courtroom were Nisqually tribal leader Billy Frank, Jr., and his 95-year-old father, whose six acres along the Nisqually River, known as Frank's Landing, had been targeted for years by state game wardens in the so-called Fish Wars.By the 1960s the Landing had become a focal point for the assertion of tribal treaty rights in the Northwest. It also lay at the moral center of the tribal sovereignty movement nationally. The confrontations at the Landing hit the news and caught the conscience of many. Like the schoolhouse steps at Little Rock, or the bridge at Selma, Frank's Landing came to signify a threshold for change, and Billy Frank, Jr., became a leading architect of consensus, a role he continues today as one of the most colorful and accomplished figures in the modern history of the Pacific Northwest.In Messages from Frank's Landing, Charles Wilkinson explores the broad historical, legal, and social context of Indian fishing rights in the Pacific Northwest, providing a dramatic account of the people and issues involved. He draws on his own decades of experience as a lawyer working with Indian people, and focuses throughout on Billy Frank and the river flowing past Frank's Landing. In all aspects of Frank's life as an activist, from legal settlements negotiated over salmon habitats destroyed by hydroelectric plants, to successful negotiations with the U.S. Army for environmental protection of tribal lands,

An accessible and educational illustrated book profiling 50 notable American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian people, from NBA star Kyrie Irving of the Standing Rock Lakota to Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation An American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Award Young Adult Honor Book!