SEATTLE — May 5, 2014 — Billy Frank Jr., a tribal fisherman who led the "fish wars" that restored fishing rights and helped preserve a way of life for American Indians in the Northwest four decades ago, died Monday at 83.
The Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission and the Nisqually Tribe near Olympia, Washington, confirmed his death. The cause was not immediately known.
Frank was arrested more than 50 times for "illegal fishing" between boyhood and middle age, during what came to be known as the fish wars. Initially driven to fish at night and hide his canoe to avoid authorities who regarded them as poachers, he and others took their fight public in the 1960s, inviting observers to witness their sometimes violent arrests.
Patterned after the sit-ins of the civil rights movement, the campaign was part of larger, nationwide movement for American Indian rights, including better schooling, free speech and legal protections.
"He was a selfless leader who dedicated his life to the long fight for the rights of our state's native people," Gov. Jay Inslee said in a written statement. "Billy was a champion of tribal rights, of the salmon, and the environment. He did that even when it meant putting himself in physical danger or facing jail."
Read the full story by the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald