Trying to make a difference

It has been a couple of weeks since Alan R. Parker lost his long battle with cancer. An enrolled member of the Chippewa Cree Nation, Parker received a Juris Doctor degree from UCLA in 1972, and was at the forefront of political advocacy for all things tribal for many decades thereafter. Given the fixation this culture has with celebrity and imagery, a principled, skilled, savvy professional like Parker never had much place in the fickle public eye. But his life was a microcosm of a generation of unselfish men of vision, who came out of a 1969 Indian Pre-Law Program at the University of New Mexico (UNM), and did the tough, nuts-and-bolts work over the next half century that bettered the lives of many tribal people.

Bradley Shreve, best summed up Parker’s place in history in his 2018 review of Parker’s memoir: Pathways to Indigenous Nation Sovereignty: “While historians and the public alike often fix their attention on the bombast of the Red Power movement and the larger than life personalities that animated organizations such as AIM…it was really a cadre of Native lawyers and policy technocrats working through established political channels who deserve the greatest credit for the expansion of tribal sovereignty and self-determination in the late 20^th century.”

Parker applied many strategies to achieve results, but aspirational rhetoric was not one of them. He had a keen eye, understood the nature of the beast all tribes battled, and he knew how to work with others, and against others, to achieve long term structural change, positive change that the first stiff wind would not blow away like it has much of the Red Power activism of the 1970’s.

“Alan was going to be a priest at one time in his youth,” said his lifelong friend, colleague, and 1969 classmate at UNM, Dick Trudell, “and so anyone who gives thought to becoming a priest, you quickly realize how passionate they are about people and wanting to make a difference.”

Whatever else Parker might have wanted from life, a singular thread runs through all he accomplished, and the reflections of all the people who knew him best—he wanted to make a difference.

A cadre of impressive young Native minds gathered at UNM in 1969, and Trudell said that he and Parker “were part of the first group or wave of Indian attorneys. At the time there were probably less than ten in the country that were licensed to practice. A lot of us had served in the military and it was kind of the next step in our lives. We were just kind of searching for ourselves and wondering what we should do with our lives. Alan became one of my closest friends and remained close friends up until his last breath.”

After law school, Trudell started up the American Indian Training Program, and worked with Parker: “Our primary concern was to see young Native attorneys end up in private practice on or near a reservation. We also created an intern program for Indian law students which we did for about three years and had over a hundred law students go through it.’

One of the young lawyers to benefit from this program was Mario Gonzalez, Oglala, and another member of the Class of 1969.

“Alan and Dick got a grant from the Lilly Foundation,” Gonzalez said, “to set up some law students that had passed the bar exam and had licenses with a law practice. I was one of the first four that got into that program.”

This assistance helped Gonzalez launch an impressive career that had a huge impact on the struggles to get back the Black Hills in the decades to come. Later, Gonzalez would work with Parker and Suzan Harjo “on the Wounded Knee Bill to develop a memorial for the Wounded Knee Massacre Site. One of the things we wanted was an apology before the 100^th anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre. Alan Parker and Suzan Harjo were the main individuals I was working with to get that concurrent resolution.”

South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle agreed to introduce the resolution, but he changed the wording, dropping the words “sincere apology” and keeping “deep regret.” As a result, according to Gonzalez, the Wounded Knee Survivors Association “rejected the resolution as an apology.”

“Alan was a brilliant man,” said Gonzalez. “When we were in the summer program I was really amazed at how smart he was. He was really outstanding, the way he presented himself in class. He was able to articulate and really understand what was going on. It was sad to see him passing this past week and I just hope he is honored properly for his achievements.”

The list of Parker’s achievements is a long one, not merely in the number of things in which he was critically involved, but in the breadth. He was graduated from St Thomas Seminary in 1965 with a B.A. in Classical Philosophy. Then he was off to Vietnam as a 1^st Lt. from 1965-1968. He was awarded the Bronze Star for outstanding leadership under combat conditions.

First stop back stateside was the Summer Pre-Law Program at UNM. From there it was off to UCLA. There was only one place to go in those days for a Native attorney wanting to make a difference, and that was Washington, D.C.

Over the next few decades, Parker was involved at the highest levels of Native interest in DC. He was Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, he busied himself helping getting many important bills through Congress: the Indian Child Welfare Act, Indian Religious Freedom Act, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the Tribal Self-Governance Act—all of these acts have had a profound impact on Indian Country. It may be many decades, perhaps centuries, before historians correctly identify the movers and shakers that helped shape Indian policy during the last fifty years, and once enough time passes, for sober, principled reflection and scrutiny, names like Jim Wilson, Rod Lewis, John and Larry Echo Hawk, Alan Parker, Dick Trudell, Mario Gonzalez and a dozen other legally trained minds, will finally be recognized for their efforts and impact on policy.

For a detailed treatment of Parker’s efforts in D.C., read his 2018 book, Pathways to Indigenous Nation Sovereignty.

“We were always creating things,” Trudell said of his longtime collaboration with Parker. “Because there was nothing out there. We kind of had our hands on whatever was going on in Indian Law policy on a national basis, from the Congress to the courts to the reservations.”

It is hard to categorize the last half century of Indian policy, but Trudell said, “When I look at my life and Alan’s life, I look at it by decade. What we did in the Seventies, what we did in the Eighties, the Nineties, and into the 21^st Century. We witnessed a lot in terms of how tribes have evolved. Every decade there have been turning points, from tribes embracing self-determination, to seeing the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in place, tribal economies starting to take off, and the major Supreme Court decisions we witnessed in the Seventies and Eighties, most of them were favorable, but starting in the Nineties in particular, things started to turn against us. I think a lot of people looked up to what we did, mainly because we were active in every arena.”

The major difference between the young men who were met at the 1969 Pre-Law Program, was their vision, their focus on what challenges awaited on the road ahead.

“Back when we started there was no money,” Trudell said. “It was about the challenge of trying to make a difference, and I think from that came some leadership. Alan was always trying to make a difference, always looking for things that could be done that hadn’t been done. He was trying to do something up until his last breath, trying to help Indian Country with some draft legislation he had been working on for over a decade.”

When asked what he thought the future for tribes might be, Parker once said, “I think that today is a time when U.S. tribal leaders should recognize the opportunities that exist outside of the boundaries of this country. They should consider the kind of international agreements or alliances they can enter into with other indigenous nation leaders to become players at the international level.”

Now, as then, one thing Alan R. Parker never lacked, was vision.

(Contact James Giago Davies at skindiesel@msn.com)

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