One of the most important outcomes of the Poor People’s Campaign was the commitment of the Justice Department to “bring lawsuits if necessary against the states of Oregon and Washington to protect treaty fishing.”
Days after the U.S. Supreme Court loss, the tribes lost a powerful advocate. Fresh off a huge California primary victory for the presidential nomination, Robert Kennedy was moving toward a press room when Sirhan Sirhan fired a pistol within an inch of the candidate’s head. Kennedy was pronounced dead within twenty-six hours.
“Robert Kennedy we met in Portland, Oregon, and then they killed him in Los Angeles, so another hope went out the door,” says Billy. “Martin Luther King got killed. All of that . . . our hope kind of drowned out.”
“Those losses impacted Indian people,” says Adams, who had served as a consultant to Senator Kennedy’s staff. “Made the fights that I’ve had to make more difficult, made them more necessary, perhaps.”
Time Magazine called 1968 “the year that changed the world.” At Frank’s Landing, change blew in with the fall rains. The youth who arrived from all over the country—they called them hippies—lived in plastics tents and cooked on portable stoves. They wrapped themselves in army blankets and huddled around a crude sign nailed to a tree. A newspaperman asked how long they planned to stay. Until the Indians’ fishing rights are restored, they’d answered. At that encampment alone, they stayed more than forty-six days.
At the time, the Seattle Times noted that you could have compared the Indian population of Washington to a “disappointing turnout for a Husky football game.” Still, the movement for treaty rights grew. “They came from everywhere to join our fight,” Billy says. “The kids came and stayed with us and went to jail with us.”
Noting the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, the state banned net fishing on the Nisqually River. Supporters arrived from as far away as Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, and California to guard the tribal fishermen’s nets. They belonged to activist groups like the Peace and Freedom Party, Students for a Democratic Society, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Black Panther Party.
Officers made a string of arrests, mostly for interfering with authorities. They accused some supporters of being “bent on civil disorder.” Indian fishermen reported at least two instances of tear gas near the encampment. When two sympathizers of the Native cause were arrested and given haircuts minutes before they posted bail, Hank Adams announced that certain tribal members would bear arms. “We are not seeking a confrontation,” Adams clarified. “We just want to protect this property from trespass.”
Chapter Seven | As Long as the River Runs added by Staff/ Story by Trova Heffernan on
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