Bernie Whitebear

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Bernie Whitebear (September 27, 1937 – July 16, 2000[1]), birth name Bernard Reyes,[2] was an American Indian activist, a founder of the Seattle Indian Health Board (SIHB), the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, and the Daybreak Star Cultural Center.[3]

Contents

[edit] Youth

Whitebear's mother, born Mary Christian, was Sin Aikst (now known as Lakes tribe, one of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation); his father, Julian Reyes, was Filipino, but had largely assimilated to an Indian way of life. Born in the Colville Indian Hospital in Nespelem, Washington, he was named "Bernard" after his great uncle (brother of his maternal grandmother), Chief James Bernard, a Sin Aikst leader in the early 20th century.[4][5] Around 1970, as he became an activist, he changed his name to honor his mother's father, Alex Christian, known as Pic Ah Kelowna, "White Grizzly Bear".[6]

His early childhood was spent largely on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington. His parents separated in 1939 and subsequently divorced;[7] his mother would later re-marry to Harry Wong, with whom she Julian Reyes had, in 1935–1937, run a Chinese restaurant during the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam.[8] While his older brother Lawney Reyes and sister Luana Reyes attended the Chemawa Indian School in 1940–1942, he was too young to do so, and lived with foster grandparents, the Halls.[9] The rest of his childhood and youth was spent living with his father, variously on the Colville Reservation and in Okanogan, Washington,[10] where he graduated from high school in 1955.[11]

After attending one year of school at the University of Washington, he enlisted in the United States Army, where he served first in the 101st Airborne Division as a Green Beret paratrooper.[12]

[edit] Activist and leader

Returning to the Seattle-Tacoma area of Washington State, he became a friend of Bob Satiacum and others who were fighting for native fishing rights on the Puyallup River, a fight that they would eventually win when the 1974 Boldt Decision made the Washington's tribes co-managers of the state's fisheries.[13] Meanwhile, however, Whitebear had become more focused on issues directly affecting urban Indians.[14]

Around 1970, he changed his name to "Bernie Whitebear". At this time, Seattle's estimated 25,000 urban Indians had "no health services, no organization, no money and no meeting place except an old church on Boren Avenue".[15] In 1970, he founded, and became executive director, of the Seattle Indian Health Board, before becoming heavily involved in the movement to make sure that Indians would gain a share of the land in Seattle that the federal government freeing up as they reduced the size of the Fort Lawton army post. On March 8, 1970, he was among the leaders of about 100 "Native Americans and sympathizers" who confronted military police in riot gear at the fort. The MPs ejected them from the fort, but they were able to establish an encampment outside the fort. Organizing as the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation (UIATF), they used tactics ranging from politicking to occupation of land (with a parade of celebrity supporters such as Jane Fonda keeping them in the headlines). Negotiations, confrontation and even a Congressional intervention combined to give them a 99-year lease on 20 acres (81,000 m²) in what would become Seattle's Discovery Park.[16][17]

Daybreak Star Cultural Center
Daybreak Star Cultural Center

He resigned as executive director of the SIHB — where he was soon succeeded as executive director by his sister Luana, who built SIHB into a major institution, launching herself on a career path that ultimately led to the deputy directorship of National Indian Health Services.[18] — and was soon elected CEO of the UIATF. At UIATF, he successfully oversaw the fundraising (including a million dollar grant from the state) and construction for what would become the Daybreak Star Cultural Center; his brother Lawney Reyes — a sculptor, designer, curator, and later memoirist[19] (as well as his biographer: Bernie Whitebear: An Urban Indian's Quest for Justice, 2006) — joined with architects Arai Jackson to design the facility, which opened in 1977.[20]

Along with Bob Santos, Roberto Maestas, and Larry Gossett, he became one of Seattle's so-called "Gang of Four" or "Four Amigos" who founded Seattle's Minority Executive Directors's Coalition.[21][22][23] He continued to build the UIATF as an institution, with programs ranging from the La-ba-te-yah youth home in the Crown Hill neighborhood to the Sacred Circle Art Gallery at Daybreak Star, as well as a pre-school, family support programs, and a large annual pow-wow held every July. In addition, UIATF acquired other land in Seattle outside of Daybreak Star, including a quarter-block downtown at Second and Cherry.[24]

In 1995, he was appointed the the board of the National Museum of the American Indian, and was involved in the planning for the museum[25] that opened September 21, 2004 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C..[citation needed] He was also involved in the early planning for the projected People's Lodge at Daybreak Star—[26] a project still in the planning phase as of 2007,[citation needed] intended to include a Hall of Ancestors, a Potlatch House, a theater, and a museum[27]—and the Pacific Northwest Indian Canoe Center, intended as part of the ongoing development at South Lake Union, just north of downtown,[28], also still in the planning phase as of 2007.[citation needed]

Whitebear died of colon cancer, July 16, 2000.[29]

Whitebear has been the subject of many tributes. One of the most unusual came from Washington governor Gary Locke, who in November 1997 declared him to be the state's First Citizen of the Decade, later remarking after Whitebear's death that it should have been "of the Century".[30]

In memory of Whitebear, there is now a Bernie Whitebear Memorial Ethnobotanical Garden next to the Daybreak Star Cultural Center.[31]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 78, 191.
  2. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 78.
  3. ^ Reyes 2002, passim, especially p. 186 et. seq.
  4. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 38 et. seq., 78.
  5. ^ McRoberts 2003 says he was born at Inchelium, Washington; Reyes indicates that is where the family was living at the time, but not the place of his brother's birth. Also, McRoberts says he was "one of six children of an Indian mother and Filipino father"; presumably he is including the half-siblings his mother later had with Harry Wong.
  6. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 31 et. seq., 187.
  7. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 90.
  8. ^ Reyes 2002, p. p. 74–75, 185, 194.
  9. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 93, 103.
  10. ^ Reyes 2002, passim.
  11. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 186.
  12. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 186.
  13. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 186–187.
  14. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 187.
  15. ^ Cate Montana, Tireless advocate Bernie Whitebear mourned, August 2, 2000, Indian Country Today.
  16. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 187.
  17. ^ McRoberts 2003
  18. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 185–186.
  19. ^ Reyes 2002, passim, especially p. 181 et. seq.
  20. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 187–188.
  21. ^ Roberto Maestas, Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, University of Washington. Accessed 11 March 2007.
  22. ^ Jamie Garner and Dorry Elias, "Bernie Whitebear: Elegy for a gone-but-never-forgotten activist", Real Change (Seattle's "homeless paper"), 15 August 2000.
  23. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 188–189.
  24. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 189.
  25. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 189.
  26. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 190.
  27. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 190.
  28. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 190.
  29. ^ McRoberts 2003
  30. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 191, 192.
  31. ^ Bernie Whitebear Ethnobotanical Memorial Garden, AfterWords, Edmonds Community College, October 11, 2005.

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

  • Lawney L. Reyes, Bernie Whitebear: An Urban Indian's Quest for Justice, University of Arizona, 2006. ISBN 0-816-52521-8. ISBN-13 978-0816525218.

[edit] External links

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