William Paul

Who was William Paul?

William Lewis Paul was an American attorney, legislator, and political activist from the Tlingit nation of Southeast Alaska. He was known as a leader in the Alaska Native Brotherhood.

William Lewis Paul was born in Tongass Village in Southeast Alaska, the second child of Louis Francis Paul and Matilda Kinnon Paul, a Tlingit couple with Scots and French ancestry as well. William's Tlingit name was Shgúndi and he was a member of the Raven moiety and of the Teeyhittaan clan. Tillie Paul was a teacher with Sheldon Jackson's Presbyterian mission among the Tlingit, later Sheldon Jackson College. William and his brothers all also attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

William and his brother Louis Paul are considered foundational members of the Alaska Native Brotherhood and in the 1920s extended its presence to every Native village in Southeast Alaska. The organization pressed for voting rights, desegregation, and social services, as well as advancing the first Tlingit and Haida land claims in Alaska. William Paul served several times as the ANB's Grand President and Grand Secretary.