Occupy Alcatraz: How an Infamous Prison Gave Rise to Native American Autonomy

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As an imposing fortress, Alcatraz island isolated inmates and imprisoned the most dangerous criminals like mob boss Al Capone. Yet after its closure in 1963, Alcatraz became the scene of occupying Freedom as Native Americans tried to take back land under a treaty with the US. How did an uninhabitable rock become the gateway to a bastion of freedom for American Indians?

Podcaster: Lesley

Further Reading

Troy R Johnson, The American Indian Occupation of Alcatraz: Red Power and Self-Determination. University of Nebraska Press: 2008.

Eagle Adam Fortunate. Alcatraz! Alcatraz!: the Indian Occupation of 1969-1971. Heyday Books, 1992

Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior. Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. New York: New York Press, 1996

Dean J Kotlowsi, "Alcatraz, Wounded Knee, and Beyond: The Nixon and Ford Administrations Respond to Native American Protest." Pacific Historical Review Vol. 72, no. 2 (May 2002), pp. 201-227

Jack D Forbes, Native Americans and Nixon: Presidential Politics and Minority Self-Determination, 1969-1972. Native American Politics Series, No 2 Los Angeles: American Indian Studies Center, 1981

​Music: "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (www.incompetech.com)