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The Occupation of Alcatraz (November 20, 1969 – June 11, 1971) was a 19-month long occupation by 89 American Indians and their supporters of Alcatraz Island and its prison complex, classified as abandoned surplus federal land. [1]
Frigid air and wet ground did little to deter the 4,500 people who gathered before dawn on Alcatraz Island on Thursday for the annual Unthanksgiving Day.
[99] [100] It was burned down by Native Americans during the Occupation of Alcatraz in 1970, leaving a shell which still remains. The club had a small bar, library, large dining and dance floor, billiards table, ping pong table and a two-lane bowling alley, and was the centre of social life on the island for the employees of the penitentiary.
After Alcatraz was abandoned as a prison, the island was briefly reclaimed as Native land -- spurring an occupation of over a year. When Native American activists took control of Alcatraz for 18 ...
In 1969, a number of Native American members of the Alcatraz-Red Power Movement group Indians of All Tribes (IAT) occupied the island of Alcatraz, under the terms of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie that allocated surplus government land to Native Americans. The occupation lasted for 19 months, from November 20, 1969, to June 11, 1971.
In 2012, the band Field Report paid tribute to Oakes and his occupation of Alcatraz in the song "Taking Alcatraz." In 2016 the artist Magneto Dayo and The Lakota Medicine Men paid tribute to Oakes, Russell Means , John Trudell , and others on a song called "The Journey" [ 22 ] [ 23 ] on the album Royalty of the UnderWorld .
While the occupation of Alcatraz seemed a failure on the surface, the federal policy of termination of all tribes ended in 1971, and self-determination became the new policy. Many consider the Alcatraz occupation the beginning of the "Red Power" movement. His 2008 book Heart of the Rock is the story of that "invasion". [1]
Belva Cottier (June 27, 1920 – May 2, 2000) was an American Rosebud Sioux activist and social worker. She proposed the idea of occupying Alcatraz Island in 1964 and was one of the activists who led the protest for return of the island to Native Americans.