Gladys Widdiss Built Bridges From Nation to Nation

I was moved by news of the death of Gladys Widdiss. She has long been one of my Island heroes, starting with her becoming valedictorian of her senior class at the Tisbury High School in 1932. More recently I admired her for her determination and success in her dealing with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to get the Wampanoag community of the Island recognized as a tribe. “We know who we are,” she used to say. “The challenge was that we just had to convince the bureaucrats in Washington who we are.”