Dolores Varela Phillips Photograph Collection, 1970

Dolores Varela Phillips is an American photographer, born on August 15, 1941. In 1966, Phillips joined her sister in Mississippi where the two worked on publications for an adult literacy program. The publications' content was designed around the culture and experiences of the state’s Black population. The program was implemented to help Black participants pass a required literacy test to acquire the right to vote. It was here Phillips first learned the art and process of photography. The sisters found that the stories they wrote were more personal when accompanied by photographs. A few years later, Phillips moved to Chicago, Illinois where she worked on the west-side with a Puerto Rican community welfare rights group. She edited a newsletter for the group, which included photographs she made and developed. Upon moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1970, Phillips was contacted by a Black-owned company based in Mississippi that produced educational materials for minority populations. The company hired her as a traveling photographer to take pictures for film strips they wished to produce. Phillips’ assignment was to document two important civil rights events in Washington state: a Black educational group in Yakima Valley, teaching local young adults their cultural history and the Nisqually and Puyallup Indian tribes fighting for their traditional fishing rights as agreed upon in the treaty of Medicine Creek of 1854.

Upon arriving in Washington State, Phillips began photographing the fishing methods used by the Nisqually-Puyallup people at Frank's Landing, Olympia, Washington. Phillips accompanied the Franks and Bridges families to an encampment on the Puyallup River under the 11th Street Bridge in Tacoma, Washington. The Nisqually-Puyallup were there for a Fish-In protest in defiance of the Department of Fish and Wildlife's sports fishing laws that denied the fishing treaty rights. Tension was building as the number of law enforcement officers present around the encampment grew.

On September 9, 1970, a violent confrontation in and around the encampment on the Puyallup River took place between law enforcement and the tribes people and their supporters. The law enforcement officers confiscated nets and released tear gas. In the end, 65 protesters were arrested. Phillips kept taking photographs throughout the event and was arrested along with all the others. While on the bus to the Tacoma jail, she tore open the lining of her purse and deposited the film between the outer layer and lining and sewed it back up. Phillips and her fellow protestors were in jail for three days. When released, Phillips got her camera and purse back with film intact.

Phillips remained in Washington for nine months following the arrests as she awaited the outcome of the charges filed against herself and the other protestors. During this time, the Bridges family took her in and she continued photographing the tribes people and fishing activities Frank's Landing. She accidently dropped her camera in the Nisqually River, damaging it beyond repair and was unable to photograph from that point on. Phillips returned home in the spring of 1971 after all charges against the September 9, 1970 protestors were dropped.

Shortly after the events of September 9, 1970, the Nixon Administration's Justice Department filed suit against Washington state on behalf of five tribes seeking to remove the restrictions on their rights established in the treaty. This resulted in the Boldt Decision in February 1974, a revision to state law to allow a total of nine tribes to retain all fishing rights.

Phillips returned to Northern New Mexico where she worked with an agricultural co-op at a newly built health clinic. She formed an art program for young adults teaching the technique of silk screening. Later, she taught in Albuquerque. One of the places she taught was Los Padillas Elementary where she constructed a five-acre environmental education outdoor classroom called The Los Padillas Wildlife Sanctuary. She retired from teaching in 1998. Phillips is currently living in Albuquerque, New Mexico.