Bernie’s Legacy
by Nicole Adams

When I was growing up in Seattle, Washington, in the 1970s, I thought that everyone was Indian. Although now difficult to understand given the city’s vast cultural diversity, at the time it made perfect sense. My world was limited to my family, at home and on the Colville Reservation east of the mountains, and to my school, Daybreak Star. As a member of the Indian center’s inaugural Head Start class, I was surrounded by Indian children, teachers, art, architecture, stories and food in a beautiful natural setting in Discovery Park, where we could learn about the bounty of foods, medicinal herbs and animals on our daily walks in the woods. In that world, my world, everyone was Indian and being Indian was a good thing.
In reading Bernie Whitebear: An Urban Indian’s Quest for Justice, it became clear to me how Daybreak Star, and my own childhood serenity, did not merely spring organically from the ground and blossom into the thriving center it came to be. Rather, they arose from the lifelong and tireless efforts of Bernie Whitebear, a champion of the struggles of urban Indian families like mine. Without him, none of it would have existed.
The book is a touching tribute penned by Whitebear’s older brother Lawney L. Reyes, and begins with Whitebear’s birth on the Colville Reservation in 1937. Tracing the family’s struggle with heartwrenching poverty, Reyes deftly draws the connection between this and devastating ecological and cultural disaster that occurred on the reservation when construction of the Grand Coulee Dam was completed. The family’s home-land was flooded and salmon runs were eradicated from the reservation.
Reyes recounts this well when describing his return from Chemawa Indian School in 1941:

[T]he Model T followed the highway to Kettle Falls. We approached the Columbia River and were surprised to see a new bridge. As we crossed the bridge, Luana and I both looked upriver. We could not believe what we saw before us. Kettle Falls was gone. The beautiful river we once knew was gone. A large, motionless body of water now covered the falls… As we pulled into the yard we could see Bernard standing by the front door waiting for us…Bernard was very thin. He wore bib overalls and there were patches on both knees. Holes in his shirtsleeves exposed his bony elbows. The toes of both shoes were nearly worn through.

Yet, despite the poverty and racism encountered by the family in neighboring border towns, Reyes emphasizes the positive spirit and unrelenting sense of humor that his brother exemplified at an early age and never lost throughout all of his life’s endeavors.

Discovering Activism
Following Whitebear’s migration west of the Cascade Mountains, the biography takes us into the era of growing unrest just before the advent of the Red Power Movement of the 1960s and ’70s. Reyes describes his brother as a young man in a big city, a man with a growing consciousness of the injustice experienced by the Indian community.
While struggling to find work, Whitebear befriends Bob Satiacum, a charismatic and strong-willed Puyallup Indian who teaches Whitebear to fish salmon and introduces him to the battle for fishing rights between Coastal tribes and white fishermen. This early friendship ignited the activist passion in Whitebear that come to personify him in future years. Reyes explains:

Through Bob’s eyes, Bernard could see clearly the big picture in Western Washington. Bernard thought that fishing with nets was a difficult way to survive but he realized the Indians who lived in the area had something to strive for. This was something Indians east of the mountains did not have. The fish are what the Indians needed to survive…During those days, I could see his thoughts growing and forming.

In those early years of advocating for Indian fishing rights, Whitebear encounters the likes of such celebrities as Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda and Dick Gregory. Buffy Sainte-Marie’s visit provides one of the many humorous stories recounted in the book:

[S]he asked Bernie if he had a car available to pick up two friends at the SeaTac Airport. Bernie advised that he could borrow his sister Luana’s two-door Chevy Nova. Bernie and Buffy drove to the airport to pick up her friends, who turned out to be Wilt Chamberlain…who was seven-foot-two, and another teammate, who was six-foot-ten. The two expressed concern when they saw how small Luana’s car was. Bernie got out of the driver’s seat and watched Chamberlain and his teammate struggle to get into the backseat. As the four traveled north to downtown Seattle, Bernie had difficult seeing the traffic behind him because Chamberlain and his teammate, who were hunched over with their knees nearly touching their chins, blocked his view.

One Man’s Impact
Through simple yet effective prose, Reyes paints a vivid picture of the hardscrabble early days of Indian activism in Seattle and Whitebear’s rise as a leader. He describes the passion of the man who led the takeover and Indian occupation of Fort Lawton in Seattle and his fierce determination not to give up until the city conceded some of the land for an urban Indian center, Daybreak Star.
While the takeover and victory at Fort Lawton provide a nice crescendo to the story, it is the story of the years afterward that piqued my interest. These were the years when I knew Bernie. After my early schooling at Daybreak Star, I kept in touch with him and even interned at his United Indians of All Tribes Foundation one summer during college, assisting him with fundraising efforts for his beloved People’s Lodge.

In those years, I witnessed firsthand the impact that that one man had upon the city of Seattle. The foundation had grown, thanks to Whitebear’s transformation from activist (“part wiseman, part wiseacre, easy to love and hard to beat in a fight” according to the Seattle Times) to what the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called “One of the smoothest schmoozers in the state.” Indeed, through his fundraising and lobbying skills Whitebear raised millions of dollars for his programs. Eventually, these came to include youth centers, substance abuse treatment programs, elders programs and programs that connected Native families with much-needed healthcare.

A Fitting Tribute
It wasn’t until Bernie got sick that I realized the mentoring and support he had provided me, he had also provided to hundreds, probably thousands of others. After acknowledging Bernie’s diagnosis with colon cancer in 1997, the book recounts the massive tribute held by the city of Seattle that I had the privilege of attending that fall. With Union Station filled beyond capacity, the program stretched well into the night as one by one people took the stage to pay homage to the man who had made such an impact on their lives. They included political dignitaries, celebrities and common folk just like me. There were dozens of stories of how Bernie had taken them in and housed them, how he had encouraged them to stay in school and continue their education, how he had given them jobs when they most needed them, and how he had led the Seattle community to find its voice in those early years.
Though touted as a celebration, there was a somberness in the air as well. Reyes recounts the moment when his brother took the stage to address the crowd:

He looked very frail and drawn. Everyone listened attentively, showing concern and deep respect. The crowd sat on the edge of their seats. Bernie went on, “After my surgery one of my doctors told me that I had serious colon cancer. Half of my live was consumed with the cancer, and it had reached my blood supply, the doctor said.” Grim faced, Bernie replied, “With all due respect, Doctor, I would like a second opinion.” The doctor studied Bernie for a minute and sighed, “Well, all right, you’re ugly, too.”

A prankster until the end, this was Bernie’s way of taking care of us. With his humor, he helped us release the sadness we were burdened with and laugh and celebrate.
I was beading a buckskin pouch to give to Bernie when he passed away in 2000. It still sits in a box on my shelf, unfinished. When I see it and wonder if he would have liked my fledgling attempt to teach myself to bead, I often feel sad at the loss of my surrogate uncle. But more often, it serves as a reminder of Bernie’s legacy, of the ability of one person to change the world.

A Moving Book
Bernie Whitebear: An Urban Indian’s Quest for Justice is a stirring testament to Bernie’s profound impact on so many people. Recounting events and conversations only he could be privy to, Reyes does a fine job in portraying the spirit of his younger brother and in elaborating the reasons why an entire people gravitated to the man who worked day and night for 40 years to be their voice, to give them a home in the city. Toward the end of the book, Reyes recounts a story that stands out:

…someone remarked, “It’s too bad that Bernie never had any kids of his own.” Another stated adamantly, “What do you mean? He has a bigger family than anyone I know. He actually has thousands of kids. Every Indian kid in Seattle is, in one way or another, Bernie’s.” It was true that Bernie enjoyed being around young people. He felt good about being able to contribute something good to their growth. It was a privilege to give them something he never had when he was young.

For those of us who knew Bernie, we know that the privilege was ours.

Nicole Adams, Colville Confederated Tribes, is a contributing editor to Winds of Change.