Indian treaty rights activist, first EPA chief among Medal of Freedom recipients

WASHINGTON – The White House announced Monday that an Indian treaty rights activist and Environmental Protection Agency leader from Washington state will be among those receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s top civilian award.

Billy Frank Jr. and William D. Ruckelshaus are among 17 people who will be recognized by President Barack Obama at a Nov. 24 ceremony. Other recipients include Barbra Streisand, filmmaker Steven Spielberg and baseball legends Willie Mays and the late Yogi Berra.

Frank was an Indian treaty rights and environmental stewardship advocate whose activism paved the way for the “Boldt decision,” which reaffirmed tribal co-management of salmon resources in the state. Frank led effective “fish-ins,” akin to sit-ins of the civil rights movement, during the tribal “fish wars” of the 1960s and 1970s.

Frank, who died in 2014, received many awards, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Distinguished Service Award for Humanitarian Achievement.

Ruckelshaus was first and fifth administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, under Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. He shaped the guiding principles of the agency and brought the public into the decision-making process. Among the EPA’s achievements under his leadership was a nationwide ban on the pesticide DDT and an agreement with the automobile industry to require catalytic converters, which significantly reduced automobile-produced pollution.

As deputy attorney general, Ruckelshaus is also known for refusing to fire the Watergate special prosecutor.

Other honorees from the entertainment world include Stephen Sondheim, Gloria and Emilio Estefan, James Taylor and Itzhak Perlman.

Politicians include Sen. Barbara Milkulski, former Rep. Lee Hamilton and the late Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to Congress.

Other honorees include veterans advocate Bonnie Carroll; NASA mathematician Katherine G. Johnson, and the late civil rights advocate Minoru Yasui.