Fighting for the Puyallup Tribe

"A relentless advocate for Native rights, Ramona Bennett Bill has been involved in the battles waged by the Puyallup and other Northwest tribes around fishing rights, land rights, health, and education for over six decades. This invaluable firsthand account includes stories of the takeover of Fort Lawton as well as events from major Red Power struggles, including Alcatraz, Wounded Knee, and the Trail of Broken Treaties. She shares her experiences at the Puyallup fishing camp established during the Fish War of the 1960s and 1970s, which led to the federal intervention that eventually resulted in the Boldt Decision. She also covers the 1976 occupation of a state-run facility on reservation land and the lobbying that led to the property's return to the tribe. Bennett Bill served for nearly a dozen years as a Puyallup Tribal Council member and ten years as chairwoman, organizing social welfare, education, and enrollment initiatives and championing Native religious freedom. Her advocacy for Native children, especially those who had been adopted out of their community, helped pave the way for the Indian Child Welfare Act. Now in her mid-eighties, she continues to organize for Native rights and environmental justice. The book is full of vivid stories of her fearless testimony in courtrooms and press conferences on issues affecting Indian Country, and of the many friends and comrades she made along the way"--

Ramona Spirithawk Bennett Bill is an Puyallup leader, civil rights activist, and former Tribal Chairwoman. She earned an MA in Edication from the University of Puget Sound in 1981, and received an honorary Doctorate of Public Affairs from the school in 2000. She is known for her trailblazing work on social welfare and Indian fishing rights, co-founding the Survival of American Indians Association in 1964. Her organizing work helped to secure the Boldt decision (United States V. State of Washington), which affirmed tribal sovereignty over fisheries. Bennett also co-founded the Local Indian Child Welfare Act Committee, which created a model for the federal Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2023. In the 1980s, she worked at the Wa-He-Lut Indian School and with the Rainboe Youth and Family Services. She was awarded with the Enduring Spirit Award from the Native Action Network in 2003 and the Bernie Whitebear award in 2018. This is her first book.