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ARCHIVAL (BAY AREA TELEVISION, 11-9-69):
OCCUPIER: American Indians have secured the island of Alcatraz.

JESSICA McEVER (MEDIA DIRECTOR, ILLUMINATIVE, CHEROKEE NATIVE): Alcatraz is a moment of inspiration. It was an intertribal movement that garnered national attention and that brought about policy change that affected our people. It’s the gold standard of  activism. 

ARCHIVAL (BAY AREA TELEVISION, 11-10-69):
RICHARD OAKES (OCCUPATION SPOKESPERSON): I think it’s about time this government starts recognizing that we young people like to take over our own destiny.

JULIAN BRAVE NOISECAT (WRITER AND FILMMAKER, CANIM LAKE BAND TSQ’ESCEN): What was special about Alcatraz and also Standing Rock, and Wounded Knee, was that they were moments where the rest of the world actually was forced to look, that other people had to pay attention to our story.

NARRATION: On November 20, 1969, a group of Indigenous activists occupied Alcatraz Island, claiming it under the banner of “Indians of All Tribes.” LaNada Means War Jack, one of the first Native American students at the University of California, Berkeley, and 23 years old at the time, was one of the leaders.

LaNADA WAR JACK (NATIVE AMERICAN ACTIVIST, SHOSHONE-BANNOCK TRIBES): The occupation of Alcatraz was just to visibly put ourselves out there to take land back. Because this country is our country, and the island is Native land. It belonged to the Ohlone people. 

NARRATION: The federal prison at Alcatraz had been abandoned since 1963. So the occupiers invoked the Treaty of Fort Laramie, signed in 1868 between the United States and the Lakota Nation, claiming that it allowed them to seize federal land that was no longer being used.

LaNADA WAR JACK: It was enough for the students to see that a treaty was being broken. So it was just enough to get us all ready to take Alcatraz.

ARCHIVAL (BAY AREA TELEVISION, 11-9-69):
OCCUPIER: This is our land! All of it! This is the starting place for all American Indians to rally around!

NARRATION: On the island, War Jack was a key strategist, and one of the female voices in the leadership. Richard Oakes, a Mohawk activist and San Francisco State University student, became the face of the occupation in the media. 

ARCHIVAL (BAY AREA TELEVISION, 11-10-69):
RICHARD OAKES: We wish to be fair and honorable in our dealings with the Caucasian inhabitants of this land, and hereby offer the following treaty: We will purchase said Alcatraz Island for $24 in glass beads and red cloth, a precedent set by the white man’s purchase of a similar island about 300 years ago. We know that $24 in trade goods for these 16 acres is more than was paid when Manhattan Island was sold, but we know that land values have risen over the years.

LaNADA WAR JACK: We appointed our governing leadership. We actually had an election and from there we established who was going to cook the food, who was going to bring the food over, who was going to be on security, who was going to help with the children, who was going to teach the children.

ARCHIVAL (ABC NEWS, 12-18-69):
NEWS REPORT: The Indians seem to be picking up a lot of support. They have received several thousand dollars in cash.

NARRATION: Television news coverage spread the story of the occupation around the world. It drew attention to the occupiers’ demands to end federal policies like forced relocation and the termination of tribal rights.  

ARCHIVAL (NBC NEWS, 11-20-70):
LaNADA WAR JACK: We will become an international outlet worldwide for authentic Indian art. And this will establish our base income to run the island and our university.

NARRATION: War Jack wanted to set up a Native American studies center on Alcatraz to teach more accurate American history. She had successfully pressured Berkeley to establish the first Native American studies curriculum a few months earlier.

LaNADA WAR JACK: It was all colonized studies. They don’t want to be confronted with the fact that this country was based on genocide of our people. So we wanted to initiate programs to talk about our truths and our histories. 

NARRATION: Plans for the future were being laid. But then, in January 1970… 

ARCHIVAL (CBS NEWS, 1-8-70):
ANCHOR: Tragedy has come to Richard Oakes, the leader of a group of Indians now  squatting on the abandoned prison grounds of Alcatraz. His 12-year-old daughter Yvonne died today of injuries suffered five days ago in a three-story fall while playing among the prison buildings.

LaNADA WAR JACK: Richard didn’t want to stay out there. It’s really hard to lose a child. And so he went back, and then we just kept working, just move forward, keep going. 

NARRATION: Soon, media coverage turned negative. Negotiations with the federal government broke down, power was cut off to Alcatraz, and living conditions deteriorated. 

ARCHIVAL (BAY AREA TELEVISION, 6-26-70):
REPORTER: What is the situation now on the island?
LaNADA WAR JACK: Well we have a considerable cache of canned C-rations. But then we don’t have any fresh fruits, vegetables, or meat or milk. We don’t know how long we’ll be able to hold out food and water-wise, but we’re going to hold out there as long as it takes to maintain our occupation.

LaNADA WAR JACK: There was a lot of negative press, always saying bad things about us, you know, how we were a bunch of wild Indians, I guess.

ARCHIVAL (CBS NEWS, 6-11-71): 
ANCHOR: Federal officials today recaptured Alcatraz Island from that band of Indian holdouts who invaded the island 19 months ago.

NARRATION: The occupation of Alcatraz ended in June 1971 with the forced removal of the last 15 occupiers by federal agents.

ARCHIVAL (BAY AREA TELEVISION, 6-11-71):
OCCUPIER: They had shotguns and clubs.
REPORTER: And what did they say, what did they say that they were doing?
OCCUPIER: They just said that we all have to get off the island.

NARRATION: But the protest did bring change.

LaNADA WAR JACK: When we were on Alcatraz, surprisingly, President Nixon was very supportive of us.

NARRATION: President Richard Nixon persuaded Congress to pass a series of bills that ushered in a new era of tribal sovereignty and self-determination for American Indians.

ARCHIVAL (AUDIO FROM THE RICHARD NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM, 12-15-70):
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: I trust that this will mark one of those periods in American history where after a very sad history of injustice, that we started on a new road, to justice in the treatment of those who were the first Americans.

JULIAN BRAVE NOISECAT: It’s hard to overstate how important the Alcatraz occupation was, but it really was a starting point for the Native rights movement in the United States and beyond, you know, it was kind of like the Montgomery bus boycott of Red Power and the Native rights movement.

NARRATION: Following Alcatraz, Native activists organized further protests and land-based occupations. The Trail of Broken Treaties in 1972 to occupy the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs; a standoff at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1973; and the Longest Walk, a five-month cross-country march, in 1978.

JULIAN BRAVE NOISECAT: To be native was to be, in a sense, an activist, to have this responsibility to carry forward, you know, something that we shouldn’t have to protest for, which was, which is the recognition of our, of our rights, you know, the upholding of the supreme law of the land as they’re described in the Constitution, our treaties, and to continue to practice these cultural ways and beliefs that have been on this land since time immemorial.

NARRATION: In 2019, Julian Brave Noisecat, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, helped organize a canoe journey to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the occupation of Alcatraz.

JULIAN BRAVE NOISECAT: The idea was that these canoes would circle the island and help reclaim the island as a symbol of Native freedom, self-determination and sovereignty. Eighteen canoes came and participated, including an Ohlone thule reed boat, an Indigenous craft from, from the area, which went all the way out to the island and touched the island on that day, it was the only craft to actually touch the island, which was really cool. And the event was covered in a lot of the local media. It made it into the New York Times. The action of re-occupation of land becomes a theme after Alcatraz, you know, of course all the way up to Standing Rock.

ARCHIVAL (ABC, 11-26-16):
NEWS REPORT: Thousands of people gathered at Standing Rock right now trying to stop construction of a massive oil pipeline. They’re concerned it will . . .

NARRATION: In April 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe began a protest against the Dakota Access pipeline, saying it would contaminate the water supply, harm sacred sites and violate treaty rights. 

LaNADA WAR JACK: Just like everybody else, I went to Standing Rock to support the people there. I ran into a lot of people that I knew, even the children and grandchildren of those who were on Alcatraz.

JULIAN BRAVE NOISECAT: It was about environmental racism and injustice,  and it was really sort of one of the most visible Native protests in American history.

ARCHIVAL (11-6-16):
REPORTER: So, right now, we are behind a small barricade. More and more people are gathering along this line.

NARRATION:  Native activists were on the front lines of the 10-month-long protest, reporting and shaping the narrative for a massive audience on social media, as the local police used pepper spray and water cannons on the crowds.

JESSICA McEVER: Images of Native activism are empowering. Whenever you think about how Natives have been portrayed, whether that’s in a Western movie or in the history class, it’s in a state of victimization and belittlement and loss. But when you can see yourself in a positive way, in a power-building way, you are no longer a victim. 

NARRATION: In the end, the Trump administration allowed the pipeline’s construction to go forward, but the Standing Rock movement had a resounding impact. Two years after taking part in Standing Rock, Debra Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo from New Mexico, became one of the first two Native American women ever elected to Congress. She would later become the Biden administration’s Secretary of the Interior.

ARCHIVAL (ABC NEWS, 2-23-17):
ANCHOR: A major development in the long-running standoff… 

NARRATION: Weeks of media coverage and an avalanche of support for the Standing Rock tribe on social media proved that contemporary stories of American Indians could go mainstream.

JESSICA McEVER: It’s because of that instance we started to see an uptick and an interest in native storylines and native characters.

NARRATION: And Hollywood was paying attention.

ARCHIVAL (CLIP FROM “RESERVATION DOGS”):
ACTOR 1: Are you Crazy Horse or Sitting…
ACTOR 2: No, no. I’m not one of those awesome guys, no. I’m more of your…

NARRATION: Standing Rock activists were involved with the creation of the critically acclaimed television series “Reservation Dogs,” the first show to be completely written and directed by Indigenous creatives.

JESSICA McEVER: I really feel like we’re on the brink of a reckoning, like, you can’t tell stories about us without us. It’s going to change the way that non-Native people see Native peoples. But more importantly, it’s going to change the way that Native people see themselves. Representation is activism. 

LaNADA WAR JACK: Alcatraz as a prison represented man’s inhumanity to man. We had to change that. We had planned and envisioned so much to happen, and it did happen, but in different ways across the country. It’s been a long fight, and it’ll continue.

(END)