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introduction 9Even so, Tom Keefe says Billy understands the anger that manyIndian people hold. “There’s a side of Billy that, when the doors areclosed and it’s just Indian people there, I am reliably informed he iscapable of articulating the anger and the bitterness that resulted fromyears of oppression by state authorities. But I don’t think it dominateshis life or has dominated his life. I’ve seen him really grow as aperson, like you would hope any person would be capable of doing ifthey set their mind to it.”The elder takes the good and bad in stride. His role as the consummatebridge builder has taken him from a concrete bunk at thePierce County jail to a public stage where he accepted the Albert E.Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, an honor bestowed on thelikes of Jimmy Carter, the president, and Desmond Tutu, the archbishop.The onetime underdog has crisscrossed the globe in defenseof Indian people and earth. His footprint can be found from the hallsof Congress to Alaska’s Prince William Sound, where Billy helpedtribes recover from the Exxon Valdez oil spill.“The fight is never over—the fight for who we are and our cultureand our way of life,” he says as his dark eyes light up. He clenches hisfists. He smiles at the thought of his indigenous brothers in Alaskaand across the world rattling the cage. Billy has been rattling cagessince he was fourteen years old.How did he do it? Therein lies an extraordinary and controversialtale of courage, determination, and a guiding belief that it takes avillage to move history.