United Indians of All Tribes

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Daybreak Star Cultural Center
Daybreak Star Cultural Center

United Indians of All Tribes (also known as the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, UIATF) is a nonprofit foundation based at the Daybreak Star Cultural Center in Seattle, Washington's Discovery Park that provides social and educational services to Native Americans in the Seattle metropolitan area. The organization has been led since 2006 by Phil Lane, Jr., who was involved in the group's early years, and who had left in 1982 to teach in Canada.[1][2]

The foundation was founded in 1970 during the struggle by Northwest Natives to gain ownership or control of a portion of Fort Lawton, as the United States Army shrunk its base there. Bernie Whitebear promptly emerged as the group's CEO, a position he held from very shortly after its founding until shortly before his death from cancer in 2000. After winning the concession of a 99-year lease on 20 acres (81,000 m²) in what was to become Discovery Park, Whitebear led the fundraising for Daybreak Star. Whitebear's brother, the designer and sculptor Lawney Reyes set forth the "philosophy, nomenclature, and organizational needs of UIATF", working with architects Arai Jackson to design the center. Whitebear negotiated with governor Daniel Evans and gained a million dollar construction grant from Washington state; he also obtained an $80,000 grant for artwork for the building's interior from the Seattle Arts Commission, of which he became a member. Further donations came from tribes and corporations, including many of the materials used in the building.[3]

By the time of Whitebear's death in 2000, the UIATF administered not only Daybreak star and the Sacred Circle Art Gallery at Daybreak Star, but also the Ina Maka family program, education and employment services, a child development center, ECEAP preschool, the La-ba-te-yah youth home, the I'Wa'Sil youth program, and elders' service program, and an annual pow-wow. They own a quarter of a downtown Seattle block at Second and Cherry, an acre in cluding the building that houses La-ba-te-yah in the Crown Hill neighborhood, and The Yale Building on land near Lake Union, which holds their administrative offices.[4]

In memory of Whitebear, there is now a Bernie Whitebear Memorial Ethnobotanical Garden next to the Daybreak Star Cultural Center.[5]

Two other initiatives contemplated by Whitebear were People's Lodge at Daybreak Star, intended to include a Hall of Ancestors, a Potlatch House, a theater, and a museum, [6] later called the "Daybreak Star Village" proposal[7]—a project now indefinitely postponed for financial reasons[8]—and the Pacific Northwest Indian Canoe Center, intended as part of the ongoing development at South Lake Union, just north of downtown,[9]—for which ground was broken February 28, 2007[10]—both conceived by Whitebear, but left in the planning phases at the time of his death.[11]

Other current UIATF intitiatives include:

  • The Fourth Way, "a sacred path to ending escalating cycles of poverty and violence and helping to build sustainable and harmonious prosperity in the Americas."[12]
  • The proposed Daybreak Star College, a primary and secondary preparatory school.[13]
  • The Community Story, their program to facilitate the local indigenous community in their programming and to identify their needs.[14]
  • The proposed Bernie Whitebear Center for Human and Community Development, in White Center, an unincorporated neighborhood between Seattle and Burien, an area where there are an increasing number of Native Americans.[15]
  • The proposed Daybreak Star Youth Summer Camp.[16]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "About" page, UIATF site. Accessed 12 March 2007.
  2. ^ De Luna 2006.
  3. ^ Reyes 2002, p.187 et. seq.
  4. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 189.
  5. ^ Bernie Whitebear Ethnobotanical Memorial Garden, AfterWords, Edmonds Community College, October 11, 2005. Accessed 12 March 2007.
  6. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 190.
  7. ^ Daybreak Star Village, UIATF site. Accessed 12 March 2007.
  8. ^ De Luna 2006. After seven years of negotiations with their neighbors, by the time they had the necessary building permission they were "emotionally and financially exhausted".
  9. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 190.
  10. ^ South Lake Union Park Project, UIATF site. Accessed 12 March 2007.
  11. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 190.
  12. ^ The Fourth Way, UIATF site. Accessed 12 March 2007.
  13. ^ Daybreak Star College, UIATF site. Accessed 12 March 2007.
  14. ^ Community Story, UIATF site. Accessed 12 March 2007.
  15. ^ Bernie Whitebear Center for Human and Community Development, UIATF site. Accessed 12 March 2007.
  16. ^ Daybreak Star Youth Summer Camp, UIATF site. Accessed 12 March 2007.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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