American Indian policy innovator passes away at age 81
JoVonne Wagner
ICT
Author, professor, American Indian law attorney and admired friend, Charles Wilkinson, died on June 6, 2023, in his home with his family by his side after suffering from a stroke. He was 81.
With more than 14 books published on natural resources, American Indian Law, modern sovereignty and other surrounding issues facing tribes, Wilkinson was one of the first experts who paved the way in the fight of Indigenous issues since the 70s.
Wilkinson graduated from Stanford university with his law degree in 1966. From there is where he met lifelong friends Richard Trudell and John Echohawk when joining the then newly established Native American Rights Fund.
“I think he saw when we first started out that there was basically not very much written about federal Indian law,” said Echohawk, the executive director of NARF and an old friend of Charles. “There wasn't much research, there weren't very many books, and they really kind of felt the need to address that problem and try to educate the public about federal Indian law.”
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One of Wilkinson's first books, “American Indians, Time, and the Law: Native Societies in a Modern Constitutional Democracy,” was published in 1987 and highlights the shift in American Indian law and the U.S government's relationship with tribal sovereign nations.
The Native American Rights Fund was founded in 1970 with a focus to bring together Native and non-Native individuals together to form an organization dedicated to provide the much needed legal help for tribal nations and citizens.
The fund was a first of its kind, which also brought on the issue of lack of resources such as American Indian policy and law books. Wilkinson, along with NARF co-founder David Getches and Dan Rosenfelt, came together to create an Indian law training manual which then became Indian law casebooks – some of the firsts, according to the organization's 50th anniversary booklet.
As a non-Native scholar, many of Wilkinson's colleagues, friends and students described his work with Indigenous communities as dedicated. He spent time being on the ground and immersed with the people that he defended.
“I think he just fell in love with Indian Affairs and he just enjoyed every trip or minute or time that he was around Native leaders and just kind of going into the communities and not just reading about them or whatever, but physically going there,” said Richard Trudell, who met Charles through the beginnings of NARF.
Trudell, who established the American Indian Lawyer Training Program and the American Indian Resources Institute, remembered always calling up his friend throughout the years, saying he wouldn't go forward on a project if Wilkinson didn't read over it first.
“I watched him grow both academically and intellectually about any issues,” Trudell said. “I just valued his opinions and his instincts and insights. We were just in constant contact.
In 2016, the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment honored Charles for his tireless work defending and advocating in Indian Country.
“Charles’s influence extends beyond place, yet his work has always originated in a deep love of and commitment to particular places. We honor Charles’s work in the same way he approached it, by starting with place and expanding to include the entire country”, the center stated in an online announcement.
Charles was also awarded the Distinguished Professor title at University of Colorado-Boulder, an accomplishment that was only given to 24 other professors in the university.
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In fact, throughout his lifetime, Wilkinson has been given many awards and recognitions on his books and lifetime works, including the Federal Bar Association's Lawrence R. Baca Award for Lifetime Achievement in Indian Law and the Warm Springs Museum’s Twanat Award for tireless work for Indian people.
The Warm Springs Museum’s Twanat Award was gifted to Wilkinson after his work with the Wascoes, Warm Springs and Paiute tribes, also known as the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, where he assisted the tribes in establishing a clear definition of tribal sovereignty.
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Trudell shared this memory with Wilkinson and explained how for roughly two years, they met, listened and learned from the Warm Springs community on producing a meaningful understanding of what the people wanted in a collaborative effort.
“It was kind of a labor of love in a sense, because we had so many meetings, we didn't know what we were doing,” Trudell said. “But that particular statement became one of their organic documents for governing along with their treaties, and their tribal constitution and bylaws, and then this declaration of sovereignty.”
One big case that Wilkinson was also a part of was the reestablishing the federal recognition for the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin who were one of the tribes who fell victim in 1961 to the termination era in. Charles worked alongside Menominee tribal leaders Ada Deer, James White and the Determination of Rights and Unity of Menominee Stockholders to strategize their efforts with Congress and resulted in the tribe's recognition being restored in 1973.
Although Wilkinson’s dedication to helping strengthen American Indian policies and defending sovereignty, he began to pursue another passion in teaching law. He left NARF and took up a teaching position at the University of Oregon before returning to Colorado to teach at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Wilkinson is described as a charismatic, involved and dedicated teacher, often inviting Echohawk or Trudell to speak with his law classes.
“I always remember just the times that I would go in his classroom and watch him teach, I mean, he was kind of a thespian in a sense, because he would prep himself before going into classes,” Trudell shared. “Almost like closeting himself to rehearse before going into a classroom and any showtime.”
Wilkinson’s methods of teaching were memorable because of the often stiff content that learning law and policies have.
“Teaching the law, I mean it's really about human experiences and issues between governments and Charles would always kinda lay the right foundation so students could really understand what he was lecturing about,” Trudell said.
Gail Small, a former law student of Wilkinson when he taught at the University of Oregon, said she remembered her old professor and advisor fondly, saying how he played an instrumental part in her career and inspired her to reassess how she viewed tribal nations in the context of history and how law can be a tool to push tribal sovereignty forward.
“I would probably tell Charles that I'm very grateful for everything that he provided me as a professor, as a friend, and for introducing me and nurturing relationships across diverse forums,” Small said. “It wasn't just Indians he introduced me to, it was like federal agencies, the secretary of the Interior.
Small said she will alway remember the impressions Wilkinson left her with.
“He instilled in me, like a fearlessness, that I knew what I was doing and I could get it done,” she said. “The confidence to do that is what he instilled in me.”
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