Jonathan P. Baird

In 2026 America, heroes are in short supply. A sociopathic President, a corrupt Supreme Court, and a supine Congress offer nothing to cheer about. Looking for someone to admire, there is a need to look outside conventional or Establishment places.

When I was traveling out West earlier this month, along with others from my Nation Native American Voices trip, I had the opportunity to meet an unsung hero, John Echohawk, a member of the Pawnee Nation. Echohawk is a lawyer who has played a major role in resurrecting federal Indian law.

Meeting with him was like exposure to living history.

He described his experience as the first Native American graduate of the University of New Mexico Law School. Through the LBJ War on Poverty and the Office of Economic Opportunity, he was able to secure a full scholarship to go to law school. His law school was one of the first to put together a course in federal Indian law. There was no roadmap in 1970.

Dispossession of land, opposition to water rights, and objection to sacred cultural practices was the Native American reality. Termination of treaty rights and efforts toward assimilation were the norm. Echohawk said it was a revelation to learn about tribal sovereignty rights. In the early 1970’s even tribal leaders didn’t know about treaty rights.

Echohawk learned that there was a complex body of law between hundreds of Native American tribes and the U.S. government. He realized that it didn’t matter what the law said unless there were lawyers to enforce treaty provisions.

After law school in 1970, he co-founded the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) which 56 years later remains the most powerful voice in the country to protect Native American rights, resources and lifeways. Echohawk said he learned from the civil rights movement of that era and he wanted NARF to do for Native Americans what the NAACP Legal Defense Fund had done for African Americans.

NARF developed five priorities:

1. Preserve Tribal existence
2. Protect Tribal natural resources
3. Promote Native American human rights
4. Hold governments accountable to Native Americans
5. Develop Indian law and educate the public about Indian rights, laws and issues

They have filed and won hundreds of cases involving tribal sovereignty, tribal rights and natural resource protection. They have provided legal advice and assistance to Tribes on a wide range of matters. Echohawk has been the Executive Director of NARF since 1977.

Concerned about the erosion of tribal sovereignty by U.S. Supreme Court justices who were unfamiliar with federal Indian law, he helped set up a Tribal Supreme Court Project. That project has significantly improved outcomes for Tribes with a 70% win rate in SCOTUS cases over the last decade. Before the Project’s creation, Tribes were experiencing an 80% loss rate.

Of the successful litigation, I would mention several cases. Throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s, “Fish Wars” developed as Washington state attempted to enforce regulations that prohibited Native Americans in northwest Washington from fishing at their traditional, off-reservation locations.

In what came to be known as the Boldt decision, Federal Court Judge George Boldt interpreted the 1850’s Stevens Treaties to mean that Tribes were legally entitled to 50% of the harvestable catch. Tribes had ceded millions of acres of land to the government in exchange for guaranteed preservation of their traditional fishing practices. This enormous victory was ultimately affirmed by both the 9th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. Echohawk said:

“Everybody came to understand that these treaties were not ancient history that they were still the supreme law of the land.”

When the state of Maine tried to take control of tribal land and affairs, NARF, on behalf of the Passamaquoddy and the Penobscot Nation pointed to the Intercourse Act of 1790 which said there can be no transactions with tribes over land unless they are approved by the federal government. NARF sued and won in both the federal and circuit court. President Carter called the parties together and the Passamaquoddy and the Penobscot reached a settlement. They got back a huge part of their land, money and federal recognition.

More recently, in Haaland v Brackeen, a case challenging the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act, NARF coordinated the largest united Indian County amicus brief with 497 Tribes and 62 Tribal organizations. The Supreme Court by a 7-2 vote upheld the law’s constitutionality, a significant victory for tribal sovereignty.

While Echohawk is modest and maintains focus on the broader Native community, not himself, in 2023 the American Bar Association awarded him the Thurgood Marshall Award, recognizing his lifelong commitment to civil liberties and human rights.

NARF now has 26 lawyers and 3 offices. Echohawk and NARF remain fully engaged in the struggle. Echohawk exemplifies the difference one person can make.