"Three days after the commissions meeting, five Sioux Indians filed a claim for Alcatraz...Now, the Examiner reported, Bay Area Indians wanted a university for American Indians established on the island. In April the United States Attorney General expressed the opinion that the Indian claims were without legal foundation." [3] "The 1964 occupation lasted for only four hours and was carried out by five Sioux, led by Richard McKenzie. This short occupation is significant because the demands for the use of the island for a cultural center and an Indian university would resurface almost word for word in the larger, much longer occupation of 1969." [4]
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"The Indian center in San Francisco had just burned down prior to the occupation and everyone was kinda hooked on that spot and said why not Alcatraz?"
-Eloy Martinez, participant at the Alcatraz Occupation
"Most Americans were either bewildered or amused. Why would anyone voluntarily go to Alcatraz, the Rock, the most feared name in the American penal landscape? Who were these Indians of All Tribes?" [7] |
Richard Oakes reading the Alcatraz Proclamation to reporters. [San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive, 1969]
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"In meetings following the November 9th occupation, Oakes and his fellow American Indian students realized that a prolonged occupation was possible. ...He recruited Indian students for what would become the longest prolonged occupation of a federal facility by Indian people to this very day." [8] |
A news report after the occupants were removed from the Nov. 9th occupation. [San Francisco Bay Television Archive, 1969]
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