It’s time for Billy Frank Jr. to have a place in the U.S. Capitol.

This is Trahant Reports.

I can still hear his voice: “I was not a policy guy. I was a getting arrested guy.” And he got arrested a lot during the 1970s, pressing for his treaty right to fish for salmon. A right that was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court.

Now, of course, the late Billy Frank Jr., is an American hero and to be clear, what I mean by that, he’s not just an American Indian hero. Or even a Nisqually or Northwest legend. His story is important to entire country. No, it’s essential.

Every Frank arrest had purpose. He was making visible injustice and standing firm on the very word of the United States; the principle that treaties meant what they said. But the federal and state governments did not see at that way at the time. So they tossed him in jail. Again. And again. And again.

A couple of decades later Frank convinced the entire establishment of the Pacific Northwest that he was, indeed right. The same governors and federal officials who were once responsible for Frank’s arrests were praising (and appointing) him. The world had changed and the Northwest was better for it.

Peter Hardin Jackson wrote on Facebook: “Sixty-five years ago the Marcus Whitman statue in D.C.’s National Statuary Hall was unveiled and is still something to behold. It’s also emblematic of a very different era, which doesn’t merit ballyhooing. An overdue corrective would be to replace Whitman with Billy Frank, Jr., who dedicated his life to political reconciliation, tribal treaty rights, and the environment.”

Jackson pointed out that this could be done quickly. “All that’s required is a non-fiscal note act of the state legislature, and the launch of a private fundraising campaign. He said: “What say you, dear people?”

The idea of a Frank statue is exciting. (I’d like to think Washington is unique because it could send two statutes to the hall, yes to Frank and also to Lucy Covington, Colville, who led the fight against termination.)

There are seven Native American heroes now in the Statuary Hall, the most recent addition was Po’pay, representing New Mexico in 2005. The hall also features notable “anti-heroes” in Indian Country including Andrew Jackson from Tennessee.

As Peter Jackson wrote, so there is no choice “but to draft legislation for the 2019 session. As Billy Frank, Jr. said, ‘I don’t believe in magic. I believe in the sun and the stars, the water, the tides, the floods, the owls, the hawks flying, the river running, the wind talking. They’re measurements. They tell us how healthy things are. How healthy we are.’”

 

I am Mark Trahant.