In 1969, a group of young American Indians who wanted the world to know about the long history of discrimination, mistreatment and treaty violations against Native people took over Alcatraz Island in California, the site of an abandoned federal penitentiary.
“The occupation of Alcatraz was just to visibly put ourselves out there to take land back," said LaNada Means War Jack, a Native historian who was one of the original occupiers. "Because this country is our country, and the island is Native land. It belonged to the Ohlone people.”
The occupation sparked an activist movement that successfully reversed federal policies aimed at erasing Native Americans’ cultural identity and reinforced tribal sovereignty. The occupation of Alcatraz ended in June 1971 when the last 15 occupiers were forced out by federal agents. But the protest sparked change.
“Alcatraz is a moment of inspiration," Jessica McEver, the director of Pop Culture + Media with IllumiNative, told Retro Report. "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."
Today a new generation of American Indian activists continues the fight for justice, preservation of their culture and environmental stewardship of their sovereign lands.
"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, "Julian Brave Noisecat, a filmmaker, told us. This video uses first-person interviews and archival news footage to explore the growth of Native-led activism, shedding light on the changes that these protests have achieved.
Colleen Thurston (Choctaw Nation), the producer of this film, is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and assistant professor in the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Associate Producer Carrie Johnson (Chickasaw and Pawnee) is an English and media studies major at Austin College, focusing on Indigenous-centered journalism. She has been a fellow and mentor-in-training for the Native American Journalists Association and was awarded the Underscore Indigenous Journalism Fellowship in 2023.
This story was supported by the Surdna Foundation.
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