(NAME-MCE) Native American rights tied to MLK

[KispokoT at aol.com]

University of Michigan 
The University Record, January  29, 2001 
http://www.ur.umich.edu/0001/Jan29_01/10.htm 
Native  American rights tied to MLK 
Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2001:  Commitment and Renewal  
By Bernie DeGroat 
News and Information Services   
Those who still think that Martin  Luther King's message of social justice 
and equality for all people applies only  to members of King's own race must 
never have heard of John Ecohawk.   
Ecohawk, a member of the Pawnee  Tribe and executive director of the Native 
American Rights Fund, has been a  leading legal and political advocate for the 
sovereign rights of Native American  tribes for more than three decades—thanks 
to the influence of King.   
"Dr. King was a great inspiration  to me when I was in law school back in the 
late 1960s," Ecohawk told a campus  audience Jan. 24 in the Michigan Union. 
"I had watched the civil rights  demonstrations on television, and when I got 
into law school in 1967, I really  saw the implications of what was happening 
in the civil rights movement led by  Dr. King for our Native American people."  
As a law student at the  University of New Mexico, Ecohawk studied the legal 
and political history of  Native Americans and became fascinated with early 
U.S. Supreme Court cases  dealing with Native American tribes and their rights.  
He said that many people still  don't know that cases the high court decided 
in the early 1830s declared that  Indian tribal nations are distinct 
governmental entities with sovereign  authority over their own affairs, subject to U.S. 
federal law.  
"This principle of tribal  sovereignty was one that captured our 
imaginations, and we saw great potential  in enforcing this legal right in the political 
climate of the 1960s," Ecohawk  said. "It was a controversial avenue to pursue, 
because the federal government's  policy relating to Indian tribes at that 
time was one of terminating our tribes,  doing away with our relationship with 
the federal government and placing us  under state jurisdiction—all against our 
will without our consent.   
"Inspired by Dr. King, who was  advancing the civil rights agenda of equality 
under the laws of this country, we  thought that we could also use the laws 
to advance our Indianship, to live as  tribes in our territories governed by 
our own laws under the principles of  tribal sovereignty that had been with us 
ever since 1831. We believed that we  could fight for a policy of 
self-determination that was consistent with U.S. law  and that we could govern our own 
affairs, define our own ways and continue to  survive in this society."  
In 1970, Ecohawk and others did  just that by organizing the Native American 
Rights Fund (NARF), which was  modeled after the NAACP's Legal Defense and 
Education Fund. For the past 30  years, NARF has served as a political advocate 
and legal defender of Native  American tribal nations in cases pertaining to 
tribal sovereignty and treaty  enforcement; land, water and fishing rights; 
religious and cultural freedoms;  and, among others, issues of taxation, gaming 
and Indian trust monies.   
Ecohawk said that NARF has had a  great deal of success in protecting Native 
American rights, not only in the  courts, but also in the halls of Congress 
and in the Oval Office. In fact, every  U.S. president beginning with Richard 
Nixon has recognized the Native American  tribal right to self-determination.  
Despite a multitude of  legislative victories, such as the 1975 
Self-Determination Act that transferred  much authority over tribal affairs from the 
federal Bureau of Indian Affairs to  the tribal nations themselves and many 
successful Supreme Court battles in the  1980s, NARF has encountered an increasingly 
restrictive political climate in  recent years—thanks to a more conservative 
Supreme Court and a  Republican-controlled Congress.  
Ecohawk said he is hopeful that  new U.S. President George W. Bush, a 
Republican, will support Native American  causes, much like his predecessors did over 
the past 30 years, although he  realizes that with the current political 
makeup of the three branches of federal  government, it could be an uphill battle 
for tribal nations.  
"Our people are still the worst  off in the country," Ecohawk said. "We're 
the poorest of the poor—worst health,  worst education, worst income, worst 
everything. We've made strides from year to  year, but we still have a long way to 
go. We're hopeful that our economic  conditions will improve.  
"We will continue to assert our  rights and try to educate people, to tell 
them who we are and that we'll keep  fighting for these principles, which are 
consistent with Martin Luther King's  principles and fighting for justice for 
all people."  
Ecohawk's talk was sponsored by  the Native American Law Student Association, 
the Native American Student  Association and the MLK Symposium Planning 
Committee. 

 
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