Judge George Boldt's Decision
John Hughes will discuss the life and legacy of Federal Judge George H. Boldt. Fifty years ago, in Tacoma, on February 12, 1974, Boldt handed down his landmark ruling on Native American fishing rights. The Republican jurist said the treaty tribes were entitled to up to 50 percent of the catch in all their “usual and accustomed places.” The backlash from non-Indian fishermen was instantaneous, and the State of Washington appealed the decision all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1979, when the high court upheld the Boldt Decision, 6-3, the squabbling began to give way to the reality that all the stakeholders needed to join forces to preserve and enhance an endangered fisheries resource.
Speaker: John C. Hughes
John Hughes is the chief historian for the Office of the Secretary of State in Olympia. He retired as editor and publisher of The Daily World in Aberdeen in 2008 after a 42-year career in journalism. An award-winning investigative reporter and historian, he received the June Anderson Almquist Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2004. Hughes is an alumnus of the University of Puget Sound and the University of Maryland, and a trustee of the Washington State Historical Society. He is the author of 15 books on Northwest history, including Booth Who?, a biography of Governor Booth Gardner. His biography of Federal Judge George H. Boldt, who handed down a landmark decision on treaty tribe fishing rights in 1974, was published on Feb. 12, 2024, the 50th anniversary of the Boldt Decision. Hughes also edited the autobiography of Dan Evans, our former three-term governor and U.S. senator. An Air Force veteran, Hughes has traveled widely in Asia and Germany.