a Green Beret paratrooper. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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." 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. 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. 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. 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