As a leader of the Third World Strike at UC Berkeley in 1969, she was arrested but succeeded in obtaining approval for the first ethnic studies courses to be included in the university's curricula.
[1] Her mother was a veteran of World War II and had worked as a welder in the Vancouver shipyard before returning to the reservation to raise her family.
On her maternal side, her grandparents were Edith (née Bartlett), a teacher descended from Teash Ocean, and John Burns, son of the Bannock chief, Tahgee.
[2] Her father had also served in the United States Navy in Vancouver and later became a council member and chair of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation of Idaho during the termination period.
[9] Distancing herself from "so called Indian leaders" who were distrusted because of their age and social status in mainstream society, Means urged the student activists to plan a return to the island when John Folster, Adam Fortunate Eagle, and George Woodward were out of town.
[9] Means, one of the few who remained on the island for the 19-month occupation, brought her 2-year-old son, Deynon and on Sundays would leave to check on her apartment and communicate with her professors.
[4][19] Consciously choosing to bring their families, activists hoped to convey the generational and inter-tribal nature of their quest for indigenous rights.
[13] She wrote the grant proposal for $300,000 seeking to create a cultural and university facility on Alcatraz[14][20] and served in a leadership role throughout the occupation, traveling throughout the United States and speaking to raise support for their cause.
The activists remained in the building for a week seeking to raise awareness of government failures in providing for American Indians and in treaty violations.
[27] In 1979, Boyer married Alvin Ray "Gus" James,[28][29] a Paiute involved in the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation resource rights litigation with the federal government.
[4][30] She also served on the Ad Hoc Committee to Protect Indian Water Rights and represented the organization in public meetings regarding proposed legislation.
[31] In 1986 the couple circulated a successful petition to reject a proposed bill to compensate the tribe for water use, but which did not contain provisions for adequate lake levels for spawning fish.
[22] In 1997, she worked as a congressional fellow in Washington, D.C.[35] Continuing her studies, she graduated with a PhD in political science in 1999, becoming the first member of her tribe to earn a doctorate.
[5][22] James began using her tribal name LaNada War Jack,[36] and served three years as Executive Director of the Shoshone Bannock Tribes.