In the 1930s, a little tomboy and the youngest of seven children born on the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation received, as her birthright, a portion of land on the Quinault Indian Reservation.
She was just 7 years old at the time, but she would go on to become an important and consistent advocate for the rights of native tribes and their members all across the country, largely thanks to her connection with that land, an allotment where she started a logging company.
Centralia College immortalized tribal rights activist Helen Sanders on its campus Thursday afternoon with a newly installed plaque in its Diversity Plaza.
Sanders, who is now 98 years old, attended the unveiling surrounded by family, friends and community members.
Centralia College officials, including Vice President of Equity and Inclusion Joy Anglesey, welcomed Sanders to the campus around 2 p.m. and shared a bit of what they knew about Sanders’ life.
“As a little girl growing up on the Chehalis Indian Reservation, at a time when women had very specific roles, Helen apparently had very little interest in staying inside and learning to cook,” Anglesey said. “She much preferred following her father into the fields, climbing trees and exploring the world around her.”
Sanders is best known for her contribution to the country’s legal system and the role she played in a case that would travel all of the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and become a foundational precedent for cases focused on tribal rights.
Sanders, who was formerly Helen Mitchell, was the named party in the 1983 case United States v. Mitchell. That case determined that the Bureau of Indian Affairs could be held liable for the assets of native tribes held in the bureau’s trust.
Seeking to correct timber practices by private timber companies that damaged native land and reduced profits for tribal members, Sanders took action. Along with the chairman of the Quinault Indian Nation at the time, Joe Jackson, Sanders established the Quinault Allottees Association and kicked off a lawsuit that, 21 years later, would bear fruit in the form of a landmark supreme court decision.
The case started when the association filed suit against the federal government seeking to recover damages related to the mismanagement of Quinault lands. That decision has also served as an important precedent in other cases concerning the rights of native tribes since.
At Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, money from settlements won from the federal government goes toward funding a needs-based scholarship that prioritizes students with an interest in history and ethnohistory.
Sanders also did more behind the scenes than just be the subject of a lawsuit.
She became a fixture in Washington, D.C., as an advocate for tribal rights and served two terms as the secretary and treasurer of the National Congress of American Indians.
When asked after the ceremony about her contributions and what she would tell others about making change, she urged others to pay attention to what is going on around them.
“The importance is not to ignore what’s around you, and if there’s an event, make sure your face shows up,” Sanders said.
She also managed to balance that great responsibility with family life, remaining a constant part of the lives of her grandchildren, who were present at the Thursday ceremony.
Sanders’ youngest grandson, Bryan Sanders, spoke briefly at the unveiling of the plaque after many of his grandmother's achievements had already been detailed and made sure that her service simply as a grandmother wasn’t lost.
“There's a lot of amazing things that she's done, but the biggest thing for me is just her being my grandma,” Bryan said. “We love you.”
Bryan’s memories consist more of spending time with his grandmother on the reservation day in and day out than witnessing her dealings with the federal government. In fact, he lives near her today with his own family, which includes Sanders’ great grandsons. The spot along the Black River is a place Sanders admires to this day, as she told the crowd Thursday about her appreciation for the wildlife and environment that surrounds her home.
Bryan's older sister and Sanders’ eldest grandchild, Vicki Hanna, said she was more a witness to the role her grandmother played, going on trips around the country with Sanders at an early age.
She recalls seeing her grandmother help others as a child and as an adolescent, and beginning to understand how important her grandmother really was.
As attendees of Thursday's ceremony milled around snapping pictures and visiting with the woman of the hour, Hanna shared her admiration for her grandmother. who was active in raising her grandchildren, who pushed her descendants to seek education, and who, in Hanna’s eyes, represents the best qualities of native cultures and some of the early European settlers in the region.
Sanders is descended both from important Nisqually leaders such as Chief Quiemuth, who was assassinated in the territorial governor’s mansion in 1856, as well as from the Ford family, for whom the Fords Prairie neighborhood of Centralia is named.
Her great-grandparents were Sidney and Nancy Ford, pioneers who settled Centralia’s Fords Prairie. Their son, Sidney Ford Jr., married Josephine Quesa, Helen’s grandmother.
“Both those families, the natives who were committed to their families and the environment, she represents the best of them, as well as the English side, the Fords, who were very community oriented,” Hanna said.
Sanders’ plaque is just the third to be placed in the college’s new Diversity Plaza, which serves as an extension of the plaques added to the college's clock tower. The tower, which was constructed in 1991, became the site of the college’s diversity program in 1997. Its brick foundation features plaques similar to that of Sanders.
By 2017, all 16 spots had been filled.
Local author and historian Sandy Crowell published a book about Sanders’ life in 2024. Learn more about the book at https://tinyurl.com/5n6vbxbr.
For more information about the plaque dedicated to Sanders in the Centralia College Diversity Plaza, visit https://tinyurl.com/bdf5bc5k.
For a more detailed history of Sanders' life as told by The Chronicle’s longtime columnist Julie McDonald, visit https://tinyurl.com/4ph9vyee.
