OLYMPIA, Wash. — What organizers hope is the final application before Billy Frank Jr. is memorialized in the U.S. Capitol, has been submitted, the latest step in a years-long journey to immortalize a man that changed the state, and how tribes are treated.
The sculpture, when approved by the Capitol Architect, will feature Billy sitting, a bolo tie popping with color, as is the Pendleton blanket over his lap, and salmon swimming beneath his feet.
“They all speak to his life and his work,” Michael Wallenfells, with the ArtsWa, the agency that helped organize the selection of the artist.
Billy’s work began with fighting for the rights of Native American tribes through a practice his family had passed down through generations: fishing for Salmon among the Nisqually River. What seems commonplace now, was contentious in the 1960′s and into the 1970′s.
“They were definitely spat on, people were shot at on the river when they were doing those missions, [The State] didn’t think those treaties mattered to anyone,” said Debbie Preston, the communications director for the Nisqually tribe.
Tribes’ right to fish the waters was contested by the State of Washington, despite a treaty that had been in place for more than 100 years at the time. That treaty granted Tribes the “right” to catch half the fish in the State’s rivers. Rather, Billy and other activists were met with arrests, beatings, and even gunshots in their direction.
“Billy himself was arrested 59 times in protesting and demonstrating for his treaty rights before the state and federal governments recognized them because he knew what it said in the treaty. He knew what had been granted to Native Americans,” said Denny Heck, the Lt. Gov. Of Washington and a friend of Billy. Though Heck would be the first to say Billy made everyone he met feel like a friend.
“The thing about Billy was he was so unwaveringly consistent in his values, his vision and in his advocacy that it really eventually captured your heart,” Heck said.
Dubbed the Salmon Wars of the time, the Federal Government, led in part by the Nixon administration, sued the State of Washington for not recognizing the treaty rights. Known now as the Boldt Decision, U.S. District Court Judge George Boldt, ruled in favor of the tribes. That ruling has been held up after several rounds of appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decision. The ripple effect spread through the country as similar treaties entered between governments and tribes suddenly had merit. It also changed how the fish so synonymous with Washington was treated.
“The tribes feel that they are caretakers of that and the salmon represents all things that need to be taken care of,” said Preston.
Preston met Billy when she came aboard the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. That’s where Billy’s impact on the natural spaces of the region began to take hold. The right to fish was one thing for Billy, the treatment of the fish and the environment was another.
“[Before Boldt], there was no counting, you never count, you just took all the fish you could take,” Preston said.
“[Tribes] get half the take today, and it’s less than they had before the Boldt Decision because of the degradation of our waters,” Heck said.
Then, the era of comanagement began, where ancestral methods of counting salmon and salmon eggs took hold to determine how healthy a run is and how many fish could be taken. Sometimes that number was zero. No chum Salmon had been fished on the Nisqually for the past seven years. Even with less-than-favorable conditions this year, the run returned as strong as ever.
“So you have a run coming back that’s nearly as large than they’ve ever had that they have recorded,” Preston said. Billy’s work removed culverts from the stream, Debbie was with him when the first slabs of damns on the Elwha River were removed, a culmination of his conservation work to restore the habitat for Salmon.
Billy will stick out in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol when his sculpture is eventually placed there. For one, he’s smiling, a requirement for anyone who knew him. Second, he will likely sit right outside the U.S. House of Representatives. Finally, he will be sitting, an intentional choice by the artist, Haiying Wu.
“He’d been arrested and dragged around so many times that [Wu] felt that Billy had earned his rest.” Wallenfells said, “Now is his time to sit and look out on the Nisqually River and take a moment to reflect on everything he’s accomplished and the people in his life.”