Bernie Whitebear (September 27, 1937 – July 16, 2000Reyes 2002, p. 78, 191.), birth name Bernard Reyes,Reyes 2002, p. 78. was an American Indian activist in Seattle, Washington, a co-founder of the Seattle Indian Health Board (SIHB), the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, and the Daybreak Star Cultural Center, established on 20 acres of land acquired for urban Indians in the city.Reyes 2002, passim, especially p. 186 et. seq.
Youth He was born Bernard Reyes to Mary Christian (Sin Aikst, now known as Lakes tribe, one of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation) and Julian Reyes, a Filipino who largely assimilated to an Indian way of life. Born in the Colville Indian Hospital in Nespelem, Washington, the young Reyes was named "Bernard" after a great-uncle (brother of his maternal grandmother), Chief James Bernard, a Sin Aikst leader in the early 20th century.Reyes 2002, p. 38 et. seq., 78.McRoberts 2003 says he was born at Inchelium, Washington; Reyes indicates that is where the family was living at the time, but Reyes 2006 p. 3–4 indicates the hospital 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. Around 1970, as Reyes became an activist, he changed his name to honor his mother's father, Alex Christian, known as Pic Ah Kelowna (White Grizzly Bear).Reyes 2002, p. 31 et. seq., 187.
His early childhood was spent largely on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington. His parents separated in 1939 and subsequently divorced;Reyes 2002, p. 90. his mother would later marry Harry Wong, with whom she and Bernie's father had run a Chinese restaurant in 1935–1937, during the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam.Reyes 2002, pp. 74–75, 185, 194. While his older brother Lawney Reyes and sister Luana Reyes went away to attend boarding school, Chemawa Indian School in 1940–1942, Bernard was too young to do so. He lived with foster grandparents, the Halls.Reyes 2002, p. 93, 103.
For the rest of his childhood and youth, Reyes lived with his father, variously on the Colville Reservation and in Okanogan, Washington,Reyes 2002, passim. where he graduated from high school in 1955.Reyes 2002, p. 186. Being from a musically inclined family,Various mentions in Lawney Reyes's several memoirs, but see especially Reyes 2006, p. 94–102 about his father, sister, and brother performing in vaudeville. Reyes took up the trumpet. He eventually advanced to lead trumpet of the Okanogan High School band.Reyes 2006, p. 52. He was popular in his otherwise all-white high school, although some of his classmates' parents didn't approve of them socializing with (or, especially, dating) an Indian.Reyes 2006, p. 55–60.
After attending one year of classes at the University of Washington, Reyes lived with his mother in Tacoma, Washington for about a year. There he first met, and fished with, Bob Satiacum, another Native American. Drift netting for salmon in Tacoma's Commencement Bay and the rivers that fed into it, they were repeatedly harassed by white sport fishermen and the Coast Guard. In September 1957 Reyes enlisted in the United States Army, where he served in the 101st Airborne Division as a Green Beret paratrooper.Reyes 2006, p. 61 et. seq.; p. 71 for when he enlisted.
Forging a contemporary Indian identity After leaving the army in 1959 and returning to the Seattle-Tacoma area of Washington State, Reyes took a job at Boeing, the major employer, and remained in the Army Reserve.Reyes 2006, p. 72–73. He soon changed his name to "Bernie Whitebear" and renewed his friendship with Satiacum and others who were fighting for native fishing rights on the Puyallup River and elsewhere in Western Washington. They had these rights affirmed in the United States Supreme Court ruling known as the Boldt Decision (1974), which made the Washington's tribes co-managers of the state's fisheries.Reyes 2002, p. 186–187.
Through the fishing rights struggle, Whitebear developed a deeper sense of historic conflicts between Indians and the white population than he had attained growing up around Okanogan. During this period, the struggle over the rights to fish for salmon occasionally reached the level of physical violence.Reyes 2006, p. 77. Satiacum was prominent among those who continually upped the ante, deliberately netting fish in places where he knew it would provoke anger from sports fishermen.Reyes 2006, p. 78. According to his brother and biographer Lawney Reyes, Whitebear, Satiacum, and a few other of their friends "spent a lot of time together partying and drinking" and styled themselves as a "fraternal organization" called the "Skins", with three Tacoma taverns as their "lodges". "When the Skins gathered," Reyes wrote, "others gave them a wide berth."Reyes 2006, p. 79. According to the older Lawney Reyes, through this period, Whitebear was "learning much about the problems of urban Indians" and developing an anger that he would soon put to constructive use.Reyes 2006, p. 81 et. seq.Reyes 2002, p. 187. Through the early 1960s, Whitebear began searching for a way to change the dominant American culture's perception of Indians. He also wanted to support the recovery and retention of culture that was becoming lost as Indians adapted to a changing world and sometimes lost specific tribal knowledge and traditions.Reyes 2006, p. 83–85.
In the summer of 1961, along with his various family members, Whitebear raised opposition to a federal government proposal to "terminate" the relationship of the federally recognized Colville Reservation. Under the termination program, the government proposed to pay US$60,000 to each tribal member to relinquish their rights as American Indians. The reservation would be disbanded and the tribal members essentially assimilated to majority culture.Reyes 2006, p. 87.
Pow wows and performances As early as 1961, Whitebear organized a pow-wow at Seattle's Masonic Temple; in 1966 he moved to the city. Throughout this period, he retained his job at Boeing (and even played Sitting Bull in a Boeing employees' production of Annie Get Your Gun.Reyes 2006, p. 89.) He also became involved with young Indians in learning the songs and dances of the Plateau Indians (including the Colville), and those of the Plains, as well as more about specific tribes. Whitebear tracked down Indians knowledgeable in these various traditions, and he taught himself many of the traditional songs and dances of Native cultures.Reyes 2006, p. 86–87.
In 1968, Whitebear put together a Native American dance group to tour Southeastern Europe along with the Balkan-style Koleda Dance Ensemble. They later made a second trip, performing in France and Germany. According to his brother Reyes, Whitebear's experiences in Europe helped him "realize his calling in life", to "make Indians more visible to white people" and to help "the various tribes… forge a united front."Reyes 2006, p. 89–91.
After returning home, Whitebear organized a series of pow wows larger than any that Seattle had ever seen, to take place at the Mercer Arena at Seattle Center. He brought together some of the leading singers, dancers, and drummers of Plateau and Plains traditions, as well as of the regional Northwest Coast Indians.Reyes 2006, p. 91 et. seq.
Activist and leader During this same period, Whitebear became particularly interested in health issues among Seattle's Indians.Reyes 2006, p. 93. 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".Cate Montana, "Tireless advocate Bernie Whitebear mourned" , 2 August 2000, Indian Country Today. Accessed online 12 March 2007. . Alaskan Native Bob Lupson had helped to organize a free clinic for Indian People at Seattle's Public Health Hospital (later the Pacific Medical Center); other key figures in the clinic were Lyle Griffith, an Oglala Sioux who was then a medical resident at the University of Washington, and his wife Donna Griffith, and later New Yorkers Peter and Hinda Schnurman, Jill Marsden from England, and pharmacist Eveline Takahashi.Reyes 2006, p. 93–94.
Whitebear left Boeing to help operate the clinic. In 1969 it established itself as a separate non-profit, the Seattle Indian Health Board (SIHB). In 1970, Whitebear became the group's first executive director.Reyes 2006, p. 94–96. Lawney Reyes characterizes the SIHB as "the first major achievement for the Indian community in Seattle," and said that his brother became executive director not because he knew anything in particular about healthcare but "because he was Indian and well spoken." Jill Marsden increasingly acted as the true administrator of the group. After about a year Whitebear resigned, in order to focus on acquiring a land base for Seattle's urban Indians.
After a national search, Luana Reyes, Whitebear's sister, was hired as executive director after a business career in San Francisco.Reyes 2006, p. 96–97. Over the next decade, she developed SIHB as a 200-employee institution recognized as a national model. She was later appointed as the deputy director of the federal Indian Health Service (a political appointee position).Reyes 2002, p. 185–186.Reyes 2006, p. 97.
Shortly after this, Whitebear became deeply involved in a movement for Seattle Indians to acquire a share of the land to be declared surplus at Fort Lawton, as the government downsized this army post. The group was influenced by the Indians of All Tribes (IAT), a mostly student group of activists who had occupied Alcatraz Island, site of a federal prison, in San Francisco Bay. Initially, the Seattle movement called themselves Kinatechitapi, Blackfoot for "All Indians". Their first efforts to open discussions with the City of Seattle in advance of the turnover of the land failed. The City said it would not open discussions until it acquired the land, and referred them to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).Whitebear 1994, p. 4. As Whitebear later wrote, "This action displayed their ignorance of both the BIA's restricted service policy, which excluded urban Indians, and also the disregard and disfavor urban Indians held for the BIA."
The Kinatechitapi split between a faction that called for direct action and one that preferred to wait until the land was in city hands and then attempt negotiation.Whitebear 1994, p. 4–5. Prominent among those who preferred to wait was Pearl Warren, founder of the American Indian Women's Service League, who was concerned that a militant attitude would undercut the existing city-funded services.Reyes 2006 p. 103. It was peaceably agreed that those who wished to take more extreme action would not use the name "Kinatechitapi", but the resulting tensions led to Warren losing the next election for the Service League presidency to Joyce Reyes.Reyes 2006 p. 103–104.