Adams was instrumental in working to assert and protect Native American fishing and hunting rights on traditional territories free of state restrictions.
Adams participated in the American Indian Movement, including its occupation of the Department of Interior Building in Washington, DC in 1972 and in the 71-day standoff of the Wounded Knee incident in 1973.
[8] He left university in November 1963 immediately after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and pursued full-time work on suicide prevention for Native American youth.
[11] While serving as Special Projects Director from 1963 to 1967,[8] he met actor Marlon Brando, who later became involved in the Native American rights movement and supported protesters at several events.
[16] This collection of 200 members was concerned with protecting traditional Indian fishing rights, which were under pressure from sports and commercial fishermen and local governments.
Near the end of 1968, Adams became directly involved in the struggle and fought against state fishing regulation of Native Americans on the Nisqually River in Washington.
[18] Adams led a group of over 100 residents of Resurrection City, including Native Americans in tribal regalia, to the United States Supreme Court in Washington DC on May 29, 1968.
[8] In 1971, Adams wrote a 15-point proposal for national changes with the goal of establishing a "system of bilateral relationships between Indian tribes and the federal government."
This was the basis of the Twenty Point Proposal that AIM and other organizations later submitted to federal officials in 1972 during the Trail of Broken Treaties events in Washington, DC.
He compiled and presented information critical to making the case for Native American fishing rights in the legal challenge United States v. Washington.
[19] Adams was active on the issue as a strategist and worked in concert with Billy Frank Jr.[13] The courts acted to uphold the treaty-protected fishing rights.
The Trail of Broken Treaties caravan stopped in Minneapolis, Minnesota[20] where Adams drafted a proposal of Twenty Points, listing a series of demands.
[21][3][18] Angered by the refusal of the Nixon administration to meet with them, protesters conducted an unplanned occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs offices at the Department of Interior headquarters in Washington, D.C.
[8] Months later, Adams participated in the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee (see below): Red Power as a form of activism was not something that the National Indian Youth Council originated in the 1960s.
He was the intermediary between Frank Fools Crow, the head of the Lakota occupation, and representatives of President Richard Nixon's White House.
[19] Leonard Garment, the lead White House aide in resolving both the Interior building takeover and the Wounded Knee incident, said: "Hank Adams' role in the peaceful resolution of some very difficult problems is still vividly clear in my mind.".
In order to heighten awareness of the treaty fishing disputes in the Pacific Northwest, Adams produced As Long as the Rivers Run, a documentary film.
"[8] Vine Deloria Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux), an historian, major Native American writer, and rights activist, said Adams was one of the most important Indians of the last 60 years.