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Tillie Fay Walker

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This article is about the Native American civil rights activist born in 1928; for the American baseball player born in 1887 with a similar name, see Tilly Walker.
Tillie Fay Walker
BornJuly 11, 1928
Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, North Dakota, U.S.
DiedFebruary 3, 2018 (age 89)
Bismarck, North Dakota, U.S.
Other namesHishua Adesh (Blossoming Mint)
Occupation(s)Activist, community leader

Tillie Fay Walker (July 11, 1928 – February 3, 2018), also known as Hishua Adesh (Blossoming Mint), was an American civil rights activist and community leader. She was an enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation. She helped recruit and organize Native American participants in the Poor People's Campaign led by Martin Luther King Jr..

Early life and education

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Walker was born on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, the daughter of Hans Walker Sr. and Mercy Baker Walker. Both Mandan and Hidatsa were spoken in her childhood home.[1] Her family was relocated for the building of Garrison Dam.[2] She attended a mission school at Elbowoods, graduated from Sanish High School, and earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Nebraska in 1955.[3][4] Her brother Hans C. Walker Jr. became a lawyer, and was named head of the federal Indian Water Rights Office in 1971.[5][6]

Career

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Walker moved to Philadelphia after college, and worked for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). She succeeded Vine Deloria Jr. as director of the United Scholarship Service, funding secondary education for Native American youth, from the program's office in Denver.[7] In 1967, she testified before a Senate hearing on Indian education.[4] In 1968, she was profiled in a Vogue magazine article titled "The Thinking Indians".[8][9] She met with Martin Luther King Jr.,[10] and joined the Poor People's Campaign to recruit Native Americans to the civil rights movement.[11][12] "She believed passionately that the poor of every race were fighting the same battle," explained one historian of the campaign.[13]

From 1978 to 1988, Walker was elected to a tribal council seat in Mandaree, and she served on the Garrison Unit Joint Tribal Advisory Committee, to secure more compensation for the residents of Fort Berthold displaced by the Garrison Dam project. She testified before a Senate hearing in 1983, about health care and legal services funding for her tribe.[14] She donated money and other support to the Three Affiliated Tribes Museum, and helped place Independence Congregational Church on the National Register of Historic Places.[15] In 1997 she worked with the North Dakota Heritage Center on an exhibit titled "Sacred Beauty: Quill Work by Plains Women".[16] In her last years, she and her sister donated the Knife River Ranch to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.[17]

Chippewa Cree lawyer and professor Alan R. Parker assisted Walker as a field worker in Denver in the 1960s.[18] She worked with Harris Sherman and Vernon Bellecourt on various protest campaigns in the 1970s.[1] She was a friend and mentor to Clyde Warrior, Mel Thom, Hank Adams, and other early members of the National Indian Youth Council.[3][19]

Publications

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  • "American Indian Children: Foster Care and Adoptions" (1976)[20]

Personal life

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After several years living with Alzheimer's disease, Walker died in 2018, at the age of 89, in Bismarck, North Dakota.[15] Senator Heidi Heitkamp read a tribute to Walker into the Congressional Record later that month.[21] February 7 is observed as "Tillie Walker Day" by the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.[22]

References

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  1. ^ a b Parker, Angela K. (2024-09-10). Damming the Reservation: Tribal Sovereignty and Activism at Fort Berthold. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-9519-3.
  2. ^ Develder, Paul Van (2007-10-15). Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes, and the Trial That Forged a Nation. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-03068-7.
  3. ^ a b "Rest in Paradise: Tillie Fay Walker remembered for life of service". Buffalo’s Fire. 2018-02-10. Retrieved 2024-08-10.
  4. ^ a b United States Congress Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare Special Subcommittee on Indian Education (1969). Indian Education: Hearings, Ninetieth Congress, First and Second Sessions, on the Study of the Education of Indian Children. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 199–211.
  5. ^ "Morton Names Hans Walker to Head New Indian Water Rights Office". Bureau of Indian Affairs. Retrieved 2024-08-10.
  6. ^ Brewer, Suzette (2018-09-13). "Hans C. Walker Jr., Trailblazing Native American Lawyer, Walks On at 89". ICT News. Retrieved 2024-08-10.
  7. ^ Martínez, David (2019-08-01). Life of the Indigenous Mind: Vine Deloria Jr. and the Birth of the Red Power Movement. U of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-1-4962-1190-3.
  8. ^ Carr, Lorraine (1968-03-04). "It Happened... In Santa Fe". The Albuquerque Tribune. p. 4. Retrieved 2024-08-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ Steiner, Stan (March 1, 1968). "The Thinking Indians: No Room Now for Stereotypes". Vogue. Retrieved 2024-08-11.
  10. ^ Cobb, Daniel M. (2008-10-24). Native Activism in Cold War America: The Struggle for Sovereignty. University Press of Kansas. pp. 158, 171–173. ISBN 978-0-7006-1750-0.
  11. ^ Parr, Patrick (2021-03-02). One Week in America: The 1968 Notre Dame Literary Festival and a Changing Nation. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-64160-181-8.
  12. ^ Mantler, Gordon Keith (2013). Power to the Poor: Black-Brown Coalition and the Fight for Economic Justice, 1960-1974. UNC Press Books. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-8078-3851-8.
  13. ^ Hamilton, Robert (2020-12-01). Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Poor People's Campaign of 1968. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-5829-1.
  14. ^ Affairs, United States Congress Senate Select Committee on Indian (1983). S. 727--S. 884--S. 973: Hearing Before the Select Committee on Indian Affairs, United States Senate, Ninety-Eighth Congress, First Session, on S. 727 ... S. 884 ... S. 973 ..., April 28, 1983, Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 36–43.
  15. ^ a b "National Native American leader from ND dies at 88". InForum. 2018-02-16. Retrieved 2024-08-10.
  16. ^ "Heritage Center displaying quillwork". The Bismarck tribune. 1997-11-27. p. 24. Retrieved 2024-08-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ^ "The Story of the Walker Land Sale" NAhtAsuutaaka’ (White Shield) News Journal 4(56)(February 2018): 3.
  18. ^ "Reading Material: Launching 'The Indian Law Reporter'". The Nishnawbe News. 1974-05-01. p. 8. Retrieved 2024-08-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ^ McKenzie-Jones, Paul R. (2015-04-23). Clyde Warrior: Tradition, Community, and Red Power. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 1960. ISBN 978-0-8061-4935-6.
  20. ^ Conference on the Educational and Occupational Needs of American Indian Women, October 12 and 13, 1976. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, National Institute of Education. 1980.
  21. ^ Heitkamp, "Remembering Tillie Fay Walker" Congressional Record 164(36)(February 28, 2018): S1284.
  22. ^ Fox, Fred. "From the Desk of Fred Fox, Councilman" NAhtAsuutaaka’ (White Shield) News Journal 4(56)(February 2018): 2.
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