Walter Echo-Hawk

Modern Indian Identity

“In the Courts of the Conqueror: A Native American Experience”

We are pleased to announce Walter Echo-Hawk, a lawyer, tribal judge, scholar, and activist, as the eighth guest in our Modern Indian Identity series. With legal experience including cases involving Native American religious freedom, prisoner rights, water rights, treaty rights, and reburial/repatriation rights, Echo-Hawk worked as a lawyer for the Native American Rights Fund for more than 35 years. He is a member of the Pawnee Nation, belonging to the Kitkahaki Band, born on the Pawnee reservation in Oklahoma. He received a political science degree from Oklahoma State University (1970) and his law degree from the University of New Mexico (1973).

The Center of the American West’s Modern Indian Identity series features contemporary Indian speakers telling their stories in ways that confirm the compatibility of tradition with innovation. The speakers have profound ties to their peoples’ pasts, and they have also adapted with agility and enterprise to the conditions of our times.