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Speaker 1: This is Latino USA, the radio journal of News and

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Speaker 1: Courtures Latino USC Latin Latino USA. I'm Maria Inojosa. We

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Speaker 1: bring you stories that are underreported but that mattered to you,

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Speaker 1: overlooked by the rest of the media, and while the

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Speaker 1: country is struggling to deal with these, we listen to

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Speaker 1: the stories of Black and Latino Studios United Latino Front,

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Speaker 1: a cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront of the movement.

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Speaker 1: I'm Maria ino Jossa nose Bayan or La Latino USA. Listener,

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Speaker 1: Here's an episode the Los Archivos.

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Speaker 2: He's mister Harmon, All right, here's Harmon had ya hi.

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Speaker 2: I have a proclamation I'd like to read you.

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Speaker 1: It was nineteen sixty nine and twenty seven year old

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Speaker 1: Native student Richard Oaks was standing on Alcatraz Island, the

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Speaker 1: famous prison off the coast of San Francisco. It had

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Speaker 1: been standing empty for the last six years.

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Speaker 2: We the Native Americans, reclaimed this land, known as Alcatraz

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Speaker 2: Island in the name of all all American Indians by

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Speaker 2: writer Discovery Boy.

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Speaker 3: Alcatraz everybody can see it.

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Speaker 2: On one end of the country. You have the Statue

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Speaker 2: of Liberty and it's just the opposite, we have a

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Speaker 2: true reality of liberty.

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Speaker 1: For centuries, conquerors and settlers stole land from indigenous tribes

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Speaker 1: and struck up treaties they never intended to follow. And

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Speaker 1: so years later, in nineteen sixty nine, Richard and fellow

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Speaker 1: Native activists drew up their own deal for Alcatraz.

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Speaker 2: We wish to be fair and honorable in our dealings

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Speaker 2: with the Caucasian inhabitants of this land, and hereby all

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Speaker 2: of the following treaty, we will purchase set Alcatraz Island

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Speaker 2: for twenty four dollars in glass beads and red cloth,

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Speaker 2: a president set by the white man's purchase of a

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Speaker 2: similar island about three hundred years ago.

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Speaker 1: Richard had a sparkle in his eye. He looked over

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Speaker 1: Alcatraz with the dream of creating an indigenous mecca.

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Speaker 2: Richard, can you describe for me again what it is

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Speaker 2: you hope to build out here on Alcatraz? Build the Nations?

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Speaker 1: From Futuro Media and the PRX, It's Latino Usa II

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Speaker 1: Maria josin Today a show from our archives. The story

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Speaker 1: of Richard Oakes, a founding leader of the Red Power

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Speaker 1: movement in the late nineteen sixties, organizations like the Black Panthers,

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Speaker 1: the Brown Berets, and the Young Lords were starting a

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Speaker 1: national conversation about equal rights and protections. At the same time,

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Speaker 1: an indigenous rights movement, the Red Power Movement, was also

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Speaker 1: gathering steam. Richard Oaks, a charismatic citizen of the Mohawk Nation,

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Speaker 1: was one of its founders, and he advocated resistance through

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Speaker 1: reclaiming land from the white man. Alcatraz would become a

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Speaker 1: symbol of Native resistance for Indigenous people of all tribes,

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Speaker 1: and the Red Power Movement would lay down the foundation

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Speaker 1: for future Native movements like Standing Rock. And so today

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Speaker 1: we're telling the story of the life of Richard Oaks,

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Speaker 1: from how he got involved in the Red Power Movement

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Speaker 1: and the occupation of Alcatraz to his untimely death when

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Speaker 1: he was shot in the heart at the young age

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Speaker 1: of only thirty. Producers Janice Yamoca and Antonia se Dehido

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Speaker 1: tell us his story from the beginning.

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Speaker 4: Picture Brooklyn in the early nineteen fifties, back when the

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Speaker 4: Dodgers were still the Brooklyn Dodgers, there lived a small family,

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Speaker 4: two brothers and their single mom. The eldest brother was

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Speaker 4: named Richard Oakes. Richard and his brother had a typical childhood.

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Speaker 4: They played stickball in the streets, walk their dog, and

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Speaker 4: watched the Perry Como show at home, Silver.

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Speaker 5: And Go, Silver and Gone.

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Speaker 6: Everyone searched for Silver and Go, but.

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Speaker 7: Their slice of Brooklyn was unique.

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Speaker 8: The Oaks family lived in a thriving indigenous community of

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Speaker 8: roughly seven hundred Mohawk people, and many of these Mohawk

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Speaker 8: people were iron workers. In the nineteen thirties, skyscrapers like

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Speaker 8: the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building were filling

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Speaker 8: New York City's skyline, and it was often Mohawk iron

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Speaker 8: workers that assembled the steel skeletons beam by beam. The

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Speaker 8: majority of these Mohawk iron workers settled in the Gowanis

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Speaker 8: neighborhood in Brooklyn.

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Speaker 4: Gana wage and aquesasne Mohawks moved to the city from

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Speaker 4: the reservations in Canada and Northern New York seeking opportunity

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Speaker 4: by they often faced discrimination applying for work, since iron

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Speaker 4: working was a job that not many wanted to do.

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Speaker 4: It required being one hundred feet in the air without

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Speaker 4: a safety harness. Many Mohawks filled these jobs. There was

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Speaker 4: even a bar in the neighborhood called the Wigwam. It's

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Speaker 4: closed now, but there used to be a sign posted

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Speaker 4: over the door that read the greatest iron workers in

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Speaker 4: the world passed through these doors.

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Speaker 8: In the summers, Richard's mother would send him and his

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Speaker 8: brother to Aquasosny, the reservo where Richard was born. The

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Speaker 8: boys were still very exposed to Mohawk traditions like lacrosse,

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Speaker 8: which has been whitewashed by white guys in college, but

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Speaker 8: is also a cultural tradition of many tribes, including the

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Speaker 8: Mohawk and Onondaga nations.

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Speaker 9: Richard would wear an Onondaga lacrosse jacket when the streets

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Speaker 9: of Brooklyn, and some of the kids in the other

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Speaker 9: neighborhoods would kind of pick on them a little bit.

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Speaker 8: That's Kent Blansett, professor of Native American Studies at the

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Speaker 8: University of Nebraska at Omaha. He's also the author of

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Speaker 8: A Journey to Freedom, a biography of Richard Oakes, and

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Speaker 8: he's Native too.

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Speaker 4: Richard grew into a strong young man, over two hundred

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Speaker 4: pounds and over six feet tall. He started hanging out

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Speaker 4: with neighborhood Native gangs and gone into fights, fights that

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Speaker 4: he would win at sixteen years old, he dropped out

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Speaker 4: of high school and joined the legacy of Mohawk ironworkers,

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Speaker 4: but he kept getting in trouble. When Richard was about twenty,

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Speaker 4: he was charged with assault and robbery and served some

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Speaker 4: time in prison.

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Speaker 9: I think he was very aware that that path of

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Speaker 9: staying in the gangs that he was in in Brooklyn

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Speaker 9: was not going to be a very good path to

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Speaker 9: be on.

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Speaker 4: Within a year, Richard's charges were reduced and he was

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Speaker 4: out on parole, and then he started looking for something else.

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Speaker 8: It was nineteen sixty three and the civil rights movement

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Speaker 8: was in full year. Richard started to travel for his

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Speaker 8: job as an iron worker. One of his projects took

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Speaker 8: him to Rhode Island, where he fell in love with

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Speaker 8: a local Italian American woman and married her.

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Speaker 9: The story was that Richard was not welcomed by that

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Speaker 9: father into this marriage.

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Speaker 8: According to interviews with Richard's family, Richard's father in law

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Speaker 8: did not want his daughter to be in a mixed

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Speaker 8: race marriage.

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Speaker 10: He said he was going to make.

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Speaker 8: Sure that Richard had nothing to do with his daughter

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Speaker 8: since the father was a high ranking cop and Richard

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Speaker 8: had a criminal background, and didn't see any other choice.

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Speaker 11: But to leave.

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Speaker 9: Richard at that point, I think had lost everything and

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Speaker 9: he had to kind of rethink his life in another way.

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Speaker 7: He quit his job that same year.

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Speaker 4: He said goodbye to everyone he knew, and he decided

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Speaker 4: to start over by driving his red Ford Mustang across

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Speaker 4: the country to San Francisco.

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Speaker 7: Richard dropped out of the public school.

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Speaker 4: System when he was sixteen, but on his journey west,

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Speaker 4: he got a different sort of education.

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Speaker 9: He was creating his own Indian studies course, but he

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Speaker 9: was learning Native history. He began, you know, stopping at

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Speaker 9: different reservations along the way, and he began interacting with

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Speaker 9: a lot more Native peoples and asking, you know, hey,

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Speaker 9: you know, how's termination affecting your people? How's relocation affecting you?

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Speaker 9: You know, what's your history.

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Speaker 4: Termination was a federal policy introduced in nineteen fifty three

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Speaker 4: by Utah Senator Arthur Watkins. Basically, in mentavern stopped recognizing

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Speaker 4: over one hundred tribes, essentially terminating them.

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Speaker 8: At this point in history, tribes were federally recognized by

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Speaker 8: the government, and in accordance with treaties, those tribes received

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Speaker 8: federal funding for services like health care and education. But

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Speaker 8: with the nineteen fifty three Termination Act, the government decided

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Speaker 8: to stop recognizing tribes and pulled their funding. This act

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Speaker 8: was a continuation of the US government's long standing push

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Speaker 8: to quote americanize the Native people.

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Speaker 5: Deserving the red men to live his own life and

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Speaker 5: manage his own affairs. It is obvious there always must

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Speaker 5: be influence by the majority of inhabitants in the United

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Speaker 5: States to change the habits and customs of the minority.

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Speaker 5: Such influences intended to be nothing other than helpful to

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Speaker 5: raise the Indian standard of living, to make him happier

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Speaker 5: and more comfortable.

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Speaker 8: This time it was justified by rising McCarthyism and a

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Speaker 8: fear that communism would spread in reservations, so the government

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Speaker 8: took away their basic social services and their special task status,

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Speaker 8: which drove some tribes to go bankrupt.

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Speaker 4: The result, schools on reservations were no longer funded, so

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Speaker 4: Native children couldn't get an education near home, and the

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Speaker 4: act left many Natives homeless because they weren't able to

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Speaker 4: pay the new property taxes. And there was another program

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Speaker 4: at the same time called relocation, which also paid people

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Speaker 4: to go to big cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and

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Speaker 4: San Francisco. They gave them a one way ticket, the

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Speaker 4: promise of housing, a stipend, and some kind of job training.

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Speaker 4: Both these policies termination and relocation pushed Indigenous people to

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Speaker 4: leave the reservations and move to the cities. Back in

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Speaker 4: nineteen sixty eight, Richard was driving across the country and

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Speaker 4: seeing firsthand how these policies had affected Native people. When

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Speaker 4: he arrived in San Francisco, he discovered it actually had

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Speaker 4: a vibrant, urgeoning Indigenous community. Richard quickly fell into life there,

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Speaker 4: met and met married a woman named Anne Marufo. She

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Speaker 4: was a single mom with six kids from a previous marriage.

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Speaker 4: She was also Native from the Kashaya Pomo nation.

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Speaker 9: These kids became his life and they became an integral

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Speaker 9: part of another Indian city, as I term it, which

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Speaker 9: is founded out of the Mission District of San Francisco.

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Speaker 8: So in the nineteen sixties there were an estimated ten

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Speaker 8: thousand Indigenous people from different tribes living in San Francisco.

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Speaker 8: One of those people was a UC Berkeley student named

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Speaker 8: Lenida Warjack.

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Speaker 11: That was that next generation that they were desperately trying

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Speaker 11: to get us into the cities so that we would

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Speaker 11: melt into the melting pot and become assimilated.

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Speaker 8: Leneda had left the Shoshone Bannock Fort Hall Reservation in

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Speaker 8: Idaho in her twenties, but the job training she was

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Speaker 8: offered felt very limited, like going to cosmetology school to

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Speaker 8: become a beautician, and that's not what she wanted.

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Speaker 11: I just understood that after high school you go to college,

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Speaker 11: so that was always my intention. And when I got

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Speaker 11: out here, the university making the loudest noise was at

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Speaker 11: UC Berkeley, and I said, I want to go over there.

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Speaker 8: Lenita was the first Native student to attend UC Berkeley.

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Speaker 8: There in the hotbed for groups like the Panthers and

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Speaker 8: the Brown Berets, she became a big time activist in

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Speaker 8: the growing Red Power movement.

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Speaker 4: Red Power was an inner tribal movement all about self determination,

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Speaker 4: the right for Native communities to govern themselves, and the

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Speaker 4: movement fought for that right by reclaiming land, restoring broken treaties,

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Speaker 4: and preserving Native history.

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Speaker 11: You know, I met so many people at that time.

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Speaker 11: Everything was just exciting. But you know, I just I

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Speaker 11: can't remember when I first met Richard, but you know,

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Speaker 11: I just knew him. It's like I've always known him.

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Speaker 4: She remembers Richard from social gatherings and local palows. At

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Speaker 4: the time, twenty six year old Richard Oakes was working

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Speaker 4: as a bartender, but also as a community organizer. The

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Speaker 4: war he worked at had turned into a watering hole

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Speaker 4: for activists and student politics. Eventually, he was recruited to

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Speaker 4: run the newly formed Native American Studies department at San

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Speaker 4: Francisco State.

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Speaker 8: Eloy Martinez, a citizen of the Southern Ute Nation and

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Speaker 8: a friend of the Oaks family, remembers meeting Richard at

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Speaker 8: a Vietnam war rally.

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Speaker 6: He was real frendly. Yeah, he's friendly, but he was determined,

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Speaker 6: you know, and he had wanted to talk about teams

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Speaker 6: that needed to be done. And he asked me, he said,

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Speaker 6: when all the Chicano was going to realize that they're Indians?

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Speaker 6: And I says, but at the same time, the Indians

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Speaker 6: realize that we are. So that's how we hit it off.

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Speaker 8: Either remembers that Richard was the kind of guy who

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Speaker 8: got a lot of attention. He was charismatic and tall,

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Speaker 8: over six feet with floey black hair.

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Speaker 6: Well, I can't describe him, but I can tell you

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Speaker 6: what my wife said. She said, here is a movie.

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Speaker 6: Start good Looking.

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Speaker 8: One of the specific goals of the Red Power movement

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Speaker 8: was to reclaim land. The students, including Richard and Leneda,

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Speaker 8: started to do some research to figure out how they

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Speaker 8: could do that.

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Speaker 12: I'm cutting my own way through my own day, and

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Speaker 12: all I dare say, use it smile.

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Speaker 8: They developed a plan to take over Alcatraz.

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Speaker 4: Dean Shavers, a citizen of the Lumby Nation and a

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Speaker 4: junior E. C. Berkeley, remembers the first time he heard

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Speaker 4: about this plan.

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Speaker 13: I met Richard when he came to UC Berkeley, and

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Speaker 13: he asked us to go help him take over Alcatraz Island.

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Speaker 11: It was very casually mentioned.

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Speaker 13: This was at an end of the year party at

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Speaker 13: one of the students's apartments, and.

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Speaker 11: I looked at him and said, you're crazy.

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Speaker 13: I don't want that prison.

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Speaker 4: Alcatraz Island is a tourist attraction today, but in nineteen

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Speaker 4: sixty nine, it was a small, abandoned island surrounded by

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Speaker 4: turbulent water just north of San Francisco Bay. The only

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Speaker 4: way to get there was by boat. As a federal prison,

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Speaker 4: it once held some of the country's most notorious criminals,

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Speaker 4: like al Capone, and George machine Gun Kelly. But it

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Speaker 4: closed in nineteen sixty three because it was too expensive

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Speaker 4: to keep running and it had been sitting empty for

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Speaker 4: six years.

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Speaker 11: And Richard called me and he says, do you want

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Speaker 11: to go out on a boat ride around Alcatraz? And

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Speaker 11: so I said sure.

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Speaker 4: Here's why this plan to take over Alcatraz actually made sense.

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Speaker 4: According to a treaty from the eighteen hundreds, the US

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Speaker 4: government is responsible for returning all abandoned and out of

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Speaker 4: use federal lands to Native people. This treaty, like so

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Speaker 4: many others made with Native people in the past, had

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Speaker 4: been broken by the US government, but the students argued

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Speaker 4: that the treaty still applied and they could use it

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Speaker 4: rightfully to reclaim their land. And since Alcatraz was now

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Speaker 4: abandoned and it was federal land, they felt the island

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Speaker 4: should be returned to the native community. But word was

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Speaker 4: going around that Alcatraz was going to be sold and

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Speaker 4: turned into a casino.

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Speaker 11: When we looked at that, it was like, oh, they're

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Speaker 11: breaking another treaty, you know, right in front of our

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Speaker 11: face in this day and age, And that was just like,

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Speaker 11: let's go take it.

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Speaker 10: Inspired by the same treaty.

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Speaker 8: A group of Sioux activists had tried to take over

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Speaker 8: the island in nineteen sixty four, five years earlier, but

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Speaker 8: that occupation had only lasted a couple of hours. This time,

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Speaker 8: Richard and the Native activists were going to try it

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Speaker 8: bigger and riskier. They were going to move onto the

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Speaker 8: island permanently.

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Speaker 1: Coming up on Latino USA. The plan is set in motion.

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Speaker 1: Stay with us, not the bays.

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Speaker 14: Hello, this is Emilio Sambel here in Geneva, Switzerland. I'm

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Speaker 14: now with the European Broadcasting Union, but I used to

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Speaker 14: work with Latino USA back at its inception in the

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Speaker 14: nineteen nineties. I had the great privilege and honor of

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Speaker 14: working with and learning so much from Maria Martin, the

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Speaker 14: program's creator, and of course Maria in no Josa, it's

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Speaker 14: great host and broadcaster. Thank you both, and thanks to

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Speaker 14: the entire team of the program for everything you've done

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Speaker 14: to put the Latino community on the public radio map.

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Speaker 1: And we're back. When we left off, the Red Power

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Speaker 1: movement was going full force in the nineteen sixties and

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Speaker 1: seven Francisco, and they were about to make a power

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Speaker 1: play occupying the abandoned island. Of Alcatraz producer Jennie Yamoca

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Speaker 1: and Antonia Serejidro pick up this story.

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Speaker 4: The students would make a total of three attempts to

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Speaker 4: occupy Alcatraz Island. The first time was on November ninth,

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Speaker 4: nineteen sixty nine, and it was set up essentially to

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Speaker 4: be a publicity stunt. Local media was there to capture

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Speaker 4: the students pow wow dancing and singing on the pier.

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Speaker 4: The cameras were rolling and Richard was wearing a black

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Speaker 4: cardigan and a turquoise beaded headband wrapped around his head.

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Speaker 4: Then he started reading from a collectively written document, the

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Speaker 4: Alcatraz Proclamation, the same one we heard at the beginning

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Speaker 4: of the story.

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Speaker 2: We feel that the so called Alcatraz Island is more

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Speaker 2: than suitable for an Indian reservation. I was determined of

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Speaker 2: white man's own standards. By this remained that this place

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Speaker 2: resembles most Indian reservations in that one it is isolated

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Speaker 2: from modern facilities and without adequate means of transportation. Two

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Speaker 2: it has no fresh running water. Three it has in

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Speaker 2: adequate sanitation facilities.

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Speaker 15: Four there are no oil for.

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Speaker 10: Getting over to Alcatraz.

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Speaker 8: The activists had gotten hold of a boat called the

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Speaker 8: Monte Cristo. It was a boat that was used for reenactments,

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Speaker 8: and the activists chose it ironically because it looked like

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Speaker 8: the kind of ship that Columbus would have sailed. After

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Speaker 8: the proclamation, the group of activists, some dressed in full regalia,

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Speaker 8: boarded and the captain of the ship fired off a

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Speaker 8: blank cannon.

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Speaker 9: It wasn't enough for Richard Oaks.

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Speaker 8: That's Kent, the biographer we heard from earlier. As the

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Speaker 8: boat circled Alcatraz, Richard and a few others jumped off

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Speaker 8: and swam two hundred and fifty yards to the island.

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Speaker 3: Where is he?

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Speaker 8: In this clip you can hear the reporter ask where

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Speaker 8: is he, referring to Richard.

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Speaker 16: I wody else pick it up.

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Speaker 4: The coast Guard picked them up right away and brought

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Speaker 4: them back to San Francisco. But that night the activists

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Speaker 4: were already plotting how to get back For their second attempt,

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Speaker 4: They got another boat to take them to Alcatraz secretly

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Speaker 4: in the middle of the night.

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Speaker 7: Here's Leneda again.

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Speaker 11: The coast guard and helicopters and people storming all over

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Speaker 11: the island looking for us, And we were just hiding

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Speaker 11: out in our little secret locations, giggling around. At least

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Speaker 11: I was, you know, it was because it was exciting

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Speaker 11: and it was thrilling, and people were looking for us

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Speaker 11: and they couldn't find us.

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Speaker 4: The activist stay on the island until the next morning.

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Speaker 4: A local reporter found Richard and some occupiers hiding out

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Speaker 4: in the main cell block.

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Speaker 7: Richard told the press, I think.

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Speaker 2: It's about time this government starts recognizing that we young

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Speaker 2: people I could take over our own destiny.

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Speaker 4: The second small takeover was a hit with local media.

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Speaker 4: The activists had lasted overnight.

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Speaker 2: The Indian occupation was a short lived one and a

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Speaker 2: peaceful one, but they say they'll continue to press their

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Speaker 2: claim for the island and the center they could build

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Speaker 2: here by legal means.

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Speaker 8: Dean, the Berkeley student we heard from earlier, remembers the

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Speaker 8: moment he heard about the takeover.

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Speaker 13: Well, I went to the Native American student office at

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Speaker 13: eight o'clock that Monday morning, and their Pope place was

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Speaker 13: going crazy, and I said, what's going on? And one

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Speaker 13: of the girls, because she says well, Richard and Lend

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Speaker 13: and him swam over to Alcatraz and occupied it last night.

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Speaker 11: I said, Oh my god.

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Speaker 8: The activists were thrilled with all the publicity from these

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Speaker 8: two trips the island, but they still wanted to take

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Speaker 8: Alcatraz over for real. So for the third and final attempt,

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Speaker 8: the activists prepared for two weeks. They wanted this one

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Speaker 8: to be long term, and in the first few hours

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Speaker 8: of November twentieth, nineteen sixty nine, about eighty Native people,

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Speaker 8: including students but also families with children, got onto boats

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Speaker 8: bound for the island.

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Speaker 13: We got our sleeping bags out, got our pots and pans,

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Speaker 13: getting ready to go, get on into the boats and

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Speaker 13: go over.

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Speaker 8: At dawn with tents and food, the boats of activists

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Speaker 8: would dock on Alcatraz, and as the occupiers set foot

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Speaker 8: on the island, the occupation of Alcatraz officially began.

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Speaker 4: The next morning, press began to gather, and of course

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Speaker 4: everybody thought why.

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Speaker 13: The reporters really said, why, why you want a president?

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Speaker 11: Well, we're going to make it a university. That's Richard's idea.

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Speaker 4: The activists didn't just want to move in. They wanted

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Speaker 4: to create an Indigenous mecca. They wanted to build a

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Speaker 4: Native studies program with a traveling university, a Native spiritual center,

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Speaker 4: a Native museum, and they even wanted a restaurant fully

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Speaker 4: run and operated by Native people. And this time the

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Speaker 4: occupation grabbed the nation's attention, including the White House.

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Speaker 7: Here's Kent.

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Speaker 9: Nixon during this time had been proclaiming himself as the

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Speaker 9: new kind of Indian president.

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Speaker 4: Many indigenous activists at the time, including Lenada and Dean,

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Speaker 4: have actually said that Nixon was one of the best

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Speaker 4: presidents to the indigenous community. President Nixon's football coach in college,

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Speaker 4: Whillis Newman, was Native, and he was a man that

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Speaker 4: Nixon said he admired only second to his father. According

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Speaker 4: to Kent, Nixon was very concerned about the well being

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Speaker 4: of Native students when the occupation began.

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Speaker 9: The last thing he could do or wanted to have happen,

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Speaker 9: is for the police or federal marshals or Coastguard to

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Speaker 9: raid the island, have any Native people's or families get hurt,

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Speaker 9: because it wasn't just students that were there. There were

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Speaker 9: elders that were there, there were families that were there,

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Speaker 9: There was children that were there on the island.

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Speaker 4: And the federal government didn't seem to have a plan.

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Speaker 4: This is t e Hennon from the Government Services administration,

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Speaker 4: which oversaw Acatraz Island.

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Speaker 17: From Once you say, then are you prepared to let

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Speaker 17: the Indians remain there for an indefinite curiative.

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Speaker 18: No, I am not.

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Speaker 3: Then you must have a deadline. I have not said

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Speaker 3: a deadline. Well, then they can stay there indefinitely, that's

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Speaker 3: what they tell me.

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Speaker 8: So the activists began to set up their operations of

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Speaker 8: everyday life on this abandoned island. The prison had only

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Speaker 8: three working toilets and barely any clean water. For food,

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Speaker 8: they mostly lived off of donations.

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Speaker 13: Bread cakes, sometimes cakes, baloney and a lot of bread,

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Speaker 13: and a lot of stuff like that, hot dogs.

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Speaker 8: Boats would come and go with boxes of canned foods, clothes,

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Speaker 8: whatever simple things they needed to survive.

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Speaker 17: Should have the Fisherman's wharf area when the San Francisco

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Speaker 17: Bay has become sort of a ferry service. One boat

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Speaker 17: of Indians comes in from Alcatraz, another one goes out.

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Speaker 10: And it was freezing. Remember it was mid November.

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Speaker 13: I mean we're talking about twenty degrees above thirty above,

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Speaker 13: you know at night, and no heating. There's no heating.

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Speaker 11: We came from reservations where things were deplorable as it

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Speaker 11: is so being out there was was okay.

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Speaker 8: They also had to figure out where people were going

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Speaker 8: to sleep. Many lived in empty cells of the huge

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Speaker 8: prison that once held over fifteen hundred prisoners, but there

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Speaker 8: was one cell in particular that people actually fought for.

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Speaker 13: The high spot for the people on the island was

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Speaker 13: to sleep in the same cell as al Capone, and

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Speaker 13: people did and in fight over I got to sleep

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Speaker 13: at a Capone.

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Speaker 8: So but Lenita says that while many were sleeping in

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Speaker 8: former jail cells, there were also certain perks to living

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Speaker 8: on the island.

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Speaker 11: I had a really nice room where I had a window.

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Speaker 11: One window I could see the Golden Gate and out

442
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 11: the other window I could see the Bay Bridge, So

443
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 11: you know, I thought, wow, this is really nice.

444
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 4: A week after the occupation began, Thanksgiving approached. Support for

445
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 4: the occupation was strong. Restaurants in San Francisco donated turkeys,

446
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:52,640
Speaker 4: and monetary donations flooded.

447
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:54,600
Speaker 7: The mailroom at the mainland headquarters.

448
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:57,639
Speaker 4: Native people from across the country, both young and old,

449
00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 4: began making the pilgrimage to Alcatraz, and on Thanksgiving Day,

450
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:05,360
Speaker 4: more than three hundred Native people came to the island.

451
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:10,800
Speaker 4: By the end of December, the activist had started Radio

452
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 4: Free Alcatraz and we're broadcasting live and direct from the island.

453
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,040
Speaker 13: Over good evening.

454
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 19: This is John Trudell from Radio Free Alcatraz and welcoming

455
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:26,120
Speaker 19: you to Indian Land Alcatraz on behalf of the Indians

456
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 19: of All Tribes.

457
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 4: The host, a Santa Dakota named John Trudell, used borrowed

458
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:34,120
Speaker 4: and donated radio equipment and talked about life on the island.

459
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:36,720
Speaker 4: It was a way for others to hear all across

460
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 4: the country what was going on with their movement.

461
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 8: And people were raising money for the occupiers. Musicians put

462
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:45,679
Speaker 8: on rock and folk benefit shows, including Buffy Saint Marie

463
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:48,399
Speaker 8: a Piapot Cree folk musician Andy Thanks.

464
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 20: We'll put an end to all this way.

465
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 8: Celebrities started coming out to visit the island, including Anthony

466
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:59,199
Speaker 8: Quinn and Ethel Kennedy. Jane Fonda, one of the biggest

467
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:01,640
Speaker 8: starts to visit the island, even invited Lineda.

468
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:02,439
Speaker 10: What the time was?

469
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:05,159
Speaker 8: Lineieda means to speak on the merv Griffin and Dick

470
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:05,840
Speaker 8: Cavitt Show.

471
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 7: Do introduce your Indian friend?

472
00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:09,920
Speaker 14: Yes, Yes, I have a girl.

473
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:17,639
Speaker 9: An Indian called Lineeda means yes.

474
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:22,320
Speaker 8: The occupation was getting all of this attention, the late

475
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:25,000
Speaker 8: night shows, the music shows, and at the same time,

476
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:28,720
Speaker 8: politically things were moving along. A bill was presented to

477
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:31,760
Speaker 8: the House of Representatives in December of nineteen sixty nine

478
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 8: to quote, give Alcatraz back to the Indians. It would

479
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 8: give the occupiers full governance of the island.

480
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:41,159
Speaker 3: It has worked his way through Washington's bureaucratic.

481
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:43,120
Speaker 7: Mill for months, but the bill failed.

482
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 3: Last week the government said no, it would not give

483
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:47,920
Speaker 3: them the island, but it would make it a national

484
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:53,680
Speaker 3: park on Alcatraz. The Indians gave their reply, the starting land,

485
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 3: all of it.

486
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:57,879
Speaker 2: This is a starting place from all American Indians.

487
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 7: Ly around, tensions were starting to flare up.

488
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:06,119
Speaker 4: Richard was getting a reputation for being a hothead and

489
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 4: would often let these conflicts escalate into physical fights. A

490
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,560
Speaker 4: conference that was supposed to attract thousands to Alcatraz two

491
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 4: days before Christmas had low attendance. News from the occupation

492
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 4: started to wane as other issues and scandals took over

493
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 4: the headlines, like the Manson murders.

494
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 17: WELLI you said they were a pseudo religious cult.

495
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 21: People who worked on the ranch said they were heavy

496
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 21: users of drugs.

497
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 8: And six weeks into the occupation, many occupiers who were

498
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 8: students started to leave the island to resume their classes

499
00:27:35,600 --> 00:27:38,320
Speaker 8: as the adults held meetings with politicians and planned their

500
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 8: next steps. The children, remember, whole families came onto the island,

501
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 8: were often left on their own.

502
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 10: Here's Linda.

503
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 11: The kids were kind of their own little organization and group.

504
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:52,879
Speaker 11: But we did have the Big Rock School there for

505
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 11: a while where they went to school, but after our

506
00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:02,159
Speaker 11: teachers left then they just ran around the island and

507
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 11: it was pretty scary trying to think, oh, where's your kid,

508
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 11: you know. It was just exciting for them. They were

509
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 11: having a great time, and of course it was unfortunate

510
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:16,439
Speaker 11: what happened to Richard's daughter.

511
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:27,080
Speaker 8: Some of the children were running around unchaperoned, including Richard's

512
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:29,160
Speaker 8: daughter Yvonne.

513
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:32,640
Speaker 11: They had run up the steps to the very top

514
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 11: with the guard's quarters, and when they got up there,

515
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:39,239
Speaker 11: they used to have this thing where they thought they

516
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 11: were really big shots if they spit over the rail

517
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 11: at the top, and so they would get up there

518
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 11: and then spit over the rail. And she went to

519
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 11: do that and she leaned too far over and that's

520
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 11: when she fell.

521
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 8: Richard's son, Leonard Oaks was a young boy living on

522
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 8: the island when it happened.

523
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 6: I remember.

524
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:08,880
Speaker 22: My oldest sister she had. She had fallen and she

525
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 22: hit her head on the corner of a brick slab.

526
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 22: It had split her head from one temple to the other.

527
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 8: Yvonne suffered a fractured skull and brain injuries. They had

528
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 8: to take her off the island because there was no

529
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 8: hospital or doctor that could attend to her, and after

530
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 8: five days she passed away at a hospital in San Francisco.

531
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 21: Who comes to pay our final respects to Yvonne Rose Oakes.

532
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 21: She is the daughter of Richard and Anne Oaks. She

533
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 21: died for the Indians of all tribes Alphatraz Island.

534
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 7: Richard's children remember how painful this loss was for their mother.

535
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 16: She lost there. She came out and found her daughter.

536
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 7: This is fun at the time, and Richard's wife was pregnant.

537
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 16: With her I say in her stomach.

538
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 4: Fawn was born shortly after the accident, and even though

539
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 4: they called her Fawn her whole life, her legal name

540
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 4: is Yvonne.

541
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:27,400
Speaker 11: And I'm named after.

542
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 16: I am named after her.

543
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 4: After the accident, Richard and his family left the island

544
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 4: and they didn't return.

545
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 1: Coming up on Latino, USA, Richard Oakes tries to find

546
00:30:56,800 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 1: meaning after the death of his daughter and the fate

547
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 1: of the Alcatraz occupation. Stay with us, Yes, Welcome back.

548
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: In the midst of the occupation of Alcatraz, Native activist

549
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 1: Richard Oakes suffered a great personal tragedy and he decided

550
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 1: to leave the island. Now he had to find a

551
00:31:57,320 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 1: new way forward. Producers Jennie Samoa and Antonia Sa de

552
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 1: Hida pick up this story.

553
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 8: As Richard was grappling with the terrible death of his daughter,

554
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 8: the Red Power movement on Alcatraz and around the country

555
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 8: was actually growing quickly.

556
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 9: There was movements that were popping up all across the country,

557
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:19,320
Speaker 9: and of course the press was having a field day

558
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 9: in the sense of covering what is this new Native

559
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 9: movement and trying to figure out what is red power?

560
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 8: Indigenous occupations like Alcatraz were happening across the country, from

561
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 8: Ellis Island to New York to Pyramid Lake in Nevada.

562
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 8: Only months after Ivan's passing, Richard was already planning on

563
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 8: getting involved in another major protest.

564
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 10: Dean, Richard's friend came along.

565
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 13: Richard and I took off in like March and went

566
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 13: the Bit River and stayed for six months. So when

567
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 13: Richard says we got to go up there and help

568
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 13: those guys try to get some land back, is that okay?

569
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:57,320
Speaker 8: I'm in Well, the occupation of Alcatraz was still ongoing.

570
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 8: Richard left for Reading, California. The plan Reading was to

571
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 8: help the Pitt River Nation reclaim traditional lands from the

572
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 8: federal government. Native activists decided they were going to trespass

573
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:10,360
Speaker 8: on the land and purposely get arrested in order to

574
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 8: bring attention to their claim.

575
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 15: The impression one comes away with here is one of

576
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 15: other disbelief that a small band of Indians can really

577
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 15: expect the federal government to sign all this land away.

578
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 15: And perhaps it will never happen, But one thing seems

579
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 15: certainly clear. The Pitt River Indians are not about to

580
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 15: give up.

581
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 8: Pacific Gas and Electric also known as PGE ANDY, currently

582
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 8: occupied much of the land that the Pitt River tribe

583
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 8: wanted to reclaim. Pigani had also set up a camp

584
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 8: for their employees to use as a vacation spot, and

585
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:41,600
Speaker 8: so Richard and the other activists decided to occupy that

586
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:43,200
Speaker 8: summer camp in the middle of the night.

587
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 23: About three o'clock this morning, two of our families, who

588
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:50,479
Speaker 23: were already vacationing up there, woke up to some noise,

589
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 23: and at this point Richard Oaks informed them that they

590
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 23: had nothing to worry about. Don't be alarmed. They're not

591
00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 23: going to do any damage, so that this was merely

592
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:00,600
Speaker 23: a political move on their It was.

593
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 4: A political move because the point of occupying wasn't to

594
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 4: stay there like it wasn't Alcatraz, but rather to purposefully

595
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 4: get arrested for trespassing, and then once arrested, they would

596
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 4: have to go to court. They hoped the trial would

597
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:16,400
Speaker 4: force the court to legally assess if they were trespassing

598
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 4: or not if the land belonged to the Pitt River tribe.

599
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:24,360
Speaker 4: According to law, they weren't trespassing after all. The activists

600
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 4: actually won the case, but a lot happened after the

601
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 4: trial was over. One night, while they were in the

602
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 4: midst of the Pitt River occupation, Richard and fellow activists

603
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:38,080
Speaker 4: went out in San Francisco to a bar. That night,

604
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 4: Richard got into a bar fight and he ended up

605
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 4: getting hit in the head with a polque. Richard would

606
00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 4: lay unconscious and without medical attention for ten hours that night.

607
00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 4: It was not until early the next morning that Anne

608
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:01,480
Speaker 4: realized something was wrong. She rushed them to the hospital,

609
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 4: where they were performed brain surgery, and for thirteen days

610
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 4: he was in a coma. Richard's condition made headlines and

611
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 4: local news, especially when, in a last ditch effort to

612
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 4: improve his health, two indigenous medicine men came to the

613
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 4: side of his hospital bed to see if they can

614
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 4: help him heal.

615
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 19: Where we administered certain herbs and together with the prayers

616
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:27,880
Speaker 19: to the Creator, to the Great Spirit for the recovery

617
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:31,400
Speaker 19: of Richard Oaks.

618
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 8: Richard was bedridden for all of July. The entire left

619
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 8: side of his body was paralyzed and his face was

620
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:42,919
Speaker 8: still puffy from all the bruises. It had been eight

621
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 8: months since he left Alcatraz. The occupation he helped start

622
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:48,880
Speaker 8: was still happening on the island, but it was losing

623
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:49,840
Speaker 8: support and attention.

624
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 15: Things have fallen apart in the year they've been here.

625
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:54,879
Speaker 14: The building seemed.

626
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 15: To be burning down one by one, the garbage just

627
00:35:57,719 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 15: piling up the lighthouse.

628
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:03,319
Speaker 8: Then, while Richard was in the hospital, he learned that

629
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 8: President Nixon had released an unprecedented statement regarding Indigenous affairs.

630
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:12,120
Speaker 3: Today, President Nixon said they were the most deprived minority

631
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 3: group in this country.

632
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 8: Then he called for a new era of Indigenous affairs

633
00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:21,640
Speaker 8: all around self determination. He reinstated federal recognition of individual tribes,

634
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:24,240
Speaker 8: and he even gave some land back to the Taos

635
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 8: Pueblo tribes.

636
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 24: States for seven hundred years, the Taois Poeblo Indians worshiped

637
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 24: in this place, and we restore this place of worship

638
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:36,040
Speaker 24: to them for all the years to come.

639
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:39,399
Speaker 8: This was a very hopeful moment for the occupiers still

640
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 8: on Alcatraz. For Linda, it was staggering to hear the

641
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 8: president recognize the harm done to her community.

642
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:52,360
Speaker 11: Nixon was champion all that, and Natives around the nation

643
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 11: just really perked up, you know, because we were assimilating

644
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:03,040
Speaker 11: into the mainstream of Americans society, so to speak. And

645
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:08,440
Speaker 11: when that happened, it revived our culture again.

646
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:12,360
Speaker 4: Richard, however, was wary that this was only lip service.

647
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 4: Shortly after Nixon's speech, Richard was released from the hospital,

648
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 4: but he had to use a wheelchair. Eloy Martinez, a

649
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 4: good friend of Richard's that we heard from earlier, saw

650
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 4: Richard speak at a Vietnam rally after he was released.

651
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 6: I had seen him a little bit after he left

652
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:31,279
Speaker 6: the hospital, and I went to see him and again

653
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:33,960
Speaker 6: another round rally, and they they brought him out in

654
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:36,920
Speaker 6: a wheelchair, you know, and you could hardly hear her speak,

655
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 6: and I really just I don't know. It was really,

656
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:42,880
Speaker 6: really bad because he was such a vibrant person.

657
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:47,880
Speaker 4: Richard eventually regained the ability to walk and participated in protests,

658
00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:50,239
Speaker 4: but things were not going well for the family. He

659
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 4: struggled to find work because of his physical condition, but

660
00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:56,279
Speaker 4: he continued over the next few months, organizing with a

661
00:37:56,280 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 4: Pitt River Nation and activists were still occupying Alcatraz until

662
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:02,360
Speaker 4: the tide turned.

663
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 25: What had started as a symbolic invasion in November of

664
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:08,760
Speaker 25: nineteen sixty nine, and later turned into a bitter struggle

665
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 25: for the small band of Indians who vowed to hold

666
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:14,320
Speaker 25: Alcatraz forever, was ended here today.

667
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:16,640
Speaker 8: After a year and a half of the occupation, there

668
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:20,120
Speaker 8: were only fifteen occupiers left on the island. The government

669
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:22,720
Speaker 8: said that a few occupiers had stolen and sold copper

670
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:25,440
Speaker 8: wiring from the buildings on Alcatraz to get more money.

671
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:30,160
Speaker 5: Gamed our attention. This morning consisting of some copper cable

672
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:33,320
Speaker 5: which was sold on the mainland according to a complaint

673
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:34,240
Speaker 5: which was pulled.

674
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:37,560
Speaker 8: And using this as a justification, US Marshalls and the

675
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:41,440
Speaker 8: Coastguard went in and removed the remaining occupiers from Alcatraz.

676
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:45,319
Speaker 8: The press interviewed Richard right away about Alcatraz, to which

677
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 8: he said what would become his most famous quote, Alcatraz

678
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:51,799
Speaker 8: is not an island, it's an idea.

679
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:59,520
Speaker 9: The island itself. It's a movement, and that this movement

680
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:05,279
Speaker 9: will slowly begin to kind of take over America.

681
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 4: The occupation of Alcatraz was much more than just reclaiming

682
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 4: that particular piece of land. It was about awakening the

683
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 4: American and even global public to the issues that Indigenous

684
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 4: people were facing, including the stripping away of their land

685
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:24,400
Speaker 4: and culture, and they hoped to galvanize a new generation

686
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 4: of Indigenous people. For the Oaks family, even though they

687
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 4: were not on the island when the occupation ended, it

688
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:37,160
Speaker 4: was still a difficult time. Richard started working on a

689
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 4: greenhouse farm, the family was still struggling with money, and

690
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 4: his injuries left him walking with a limp. By now,

691
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:46,880
Speaker 4: the family had moved onto the Kashia Reservation, but when

692
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:50,839
Speaker 4: Leonard Richardson remembers that time, he doesn't remember his father

693
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 4: as a beaten man. One memory in particular stands out.

694
00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:57,279
Speaker 22: And I remember we were standing in the middle of

695
00:39:57,320 --> 00:40:00,480
Speaker 22: the road and he was holding my hand. He goes,

696
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:02,839
Speaker 22: you want to race? And I looked up at him

697
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 22: and I go no, And he goes, why not, And

698
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 22: he goes, cause you're hurt. I told him he's no,

699
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 22: let's race. So we raced, and we raced down to

700
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:13,480
Speaker 22: the school and then we raced back. Yeah he beat me.

701
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 11: He beat me on.

702
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:16,279
Speaker 21: You know.

703
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:19,239
Speaker 22: I was my little legs are moving as fast as

704
00:40:19,239 --> 00:40:22,160
Speaker 22: they can, but yeah, he beat me. And I remember that.

705
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 4: Richard spent a lot of time writing. He was working

706
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 4: on a manifesto. He had always had a vision of

707
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:32,400
Speaker 4: himself traveling the country, going to colleges and universities to

708
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:35,240
Speaker 4: help preserve native history. Here's Eloy again.

709
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 6: He had bought a school bus and he's getting ready

710
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:39,760
Speaker 6: to take him and his family, like, you know, traveling,

711
00:40:40,719 --> 00:40:42,520
Speaker 6: talking to Indian people all over and tell what was

712
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 6: going on. He never made it to the school bus.

713
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 8: This is where Richard's story comes to an abrupt end.

714
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:55,600
Speaker 8: The way it happened is both upsetting and elusive. Here

715
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:59,840
Speaker 8: are the things we know for sure. Richard's family started

716
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 8: to frequent the nearby YMCA. They had horses that the

717
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:05,239
Speaker 8: kids liked to ride on, and it was a community

718
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:06,880
Speaker 8: center that many families visited.

719
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:09,239
Speaker 10: Here's Kent, Richard's biographer.

720
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:12,439
Speaker 9: Once more, there was an employee that started working there

721
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:16,839
Speaker 9: not too soon after Richard and Annie had moved back

722
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:17,520
Speaker 9: to Kashia.

723
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 10: His name was Michael Morgan.

724
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:22,919
Speaker 9: He was a former military police officer who had been

725
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:28,680
Speaker 9: honorably discharged, and so he essentially was the director of

726
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 9: this y camp.

727
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 8: Michael Morgan was said to have been open in his

728
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:34,960
Speaker 8: sustain of Native people. Apparently he once said it was

729
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 8: quote open season on Indians and that Richard Oaks was

730
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:40,439
Speaker 8: a troublemaker and that the country would be better off

731
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:43,759
Speaker 8: without him. Michael was also afraid to Richard. It was

732
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 8: known that Michael and Richard had had heated arguments about

733
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 8: Indigenous land right issues.

734
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 9: Morgan would kind of go after Richard. He would go

735
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 9: back to his house to go grab a gun, thinking

736
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,399
Speaker 9: that Richard was going to attack him in some capacity.

737
00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:00,279
Speaker 9: Even though Richard still was suffering from some of the

738
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:03,560
Speaker 9: debilitating effects of his beating from years before.

739
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:08,360
Speaker 4: One day, Michael Morgan chased down two Native young men

740
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:11,760
Speaker 4: who he suspected were trying to steal the YMCA's horses.

741
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:15,360
Speaker 4: Michael went after them with a rifle. One of the

742
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 4: boys escaped and the other was held at a gunpoint

743
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:21,160
Speaker 4: until a sheriff came to arrest him. Richard went to

744
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 4: Michael's house to find out what happened to the arrested boy.

745
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 4: Richard was unarmed. This is where the sequence of events

746
00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:30,840
Speaker 4: is contested. At the court case that followed, Michael Morgan

747
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 4: would take the stand and claim that Richard lunged at

748
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 4: him and he shot him for fear of losing his

749
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:40,320
Speaker 4: own life. Richard's lawyer argued that given his injuries, Richard

750
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 4: could not have lunged at Michael like he described. The

751
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:47,440
Speaker 4: bullet Michael shot went straight through Richard's chest. Richard was

752
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:56,800
Speaker 4: thirty years old. Richard's children were at home when it happened.

753
00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 22: When it happened, we've seen it on the TV. My

754
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 22: mom went down there, but we watched it on TV.

755
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:05,320
Speaker 22: I don't know how it happened so fast.

756
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:14,400
Speaker 8: At the trial, Morgan was charged with manslaughter, even though

757
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:18,040
Speaker 8: Richard's family believed the charge should have been murder. After

758
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 8: the jury deliberated for three days, Michael Morgan was acquitted.

759
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 8: On March sixteenth, nineteen seventy three. Eloy Martinez was called

760
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 8: up to help the family plan for Richard's funeral, and.

761
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:32,759
Speaker 6: It just it just turned into kind of a big mess.

762
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:35,439
Speaker 6: The whole thing. Everything was all bad.

763
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 10: They had to scramble to prepare for his burial.

764
00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:41,399
Speaker 6: We actually bought him a brown leaded jacket. I would

765
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 6: runned a brown leathered jacket and put him in a mortuary.

766
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 6: And they didn't do the embalming because they didn't have

767
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:50,800
Speaker 6: any money, so they didn't eve embove him. And then

768
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:53,399
Speaker 6: they wouldn't release the body to us, you know, because

769
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:59,279
Speaker 6: nobody had any money. And some white people went into

770
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 6: the mortuary and started complaining about the smell.

771
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:05,880
Speaker 8: Once the funeral finally did come together, hundreds of people

772
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:10,840
Speaker 8: came to pay their respects.

773
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:15,959
Speaker 4: That fall, six hundred people, the largest group of Native

774
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:19,360
Speaker 4: people ever to gather in Washington, d C. Came together

775
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 4: for a protest called the Trail of Brooken Treaties.

776
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 26: Yesterday, a caravan of cars began converging on Washington bearing

777
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:29,279
Speaker 26: leaders who represent a coalition of three quarters of our

778
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 26: countries three hundred American Indian tribes.

779
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 4: Native protesters wanted to present the Nixon administration with a

780
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 4: twenty point plan to establish native sovereignty.

781
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:41,880
Speaker 3: A month ago, five hundred angry Indians took over the

782
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:45,359
Speaker 3: Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, stayed there for a week,

783
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:46,840
Speaker 3: and ransacked the place.

784
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:50,000
Speaker 4: But after a confrontation between protesters and the police, the

785
00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:55,799
Speaker 4: Nixon administration refused to meet with them.

786
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 8: Today, Richard Oaks is remembered by his children. His wife, Anne,

787
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 8: passed in twenty ten, but for many years, Richard's family

788
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 8: didn't talk a lot about him. Leonard, who was only

789
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 8: five when his father died, didn't know why. Maybe it

790
00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 8: was too painful to talk about. But when he turned twelve,

791
00:45:12,719 --> 00:45:14,320
Speaker 8: he became curious about his father.

792
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:16,680
Speaker 22: As a young boy, I had the opportunity to go

793
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:18,839
Speaker 22: through and read all of these paper clippings.

794
00:45:19,200 --> 00:45:22,120
Speaker 8: His mama collected all the newspaper clippings about his father

795
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:22,720
Speaker 8: in a box.

796
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:24,759
Speaker 22: There were times when I would go in there and

797
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:26,640
Speaker 22: just pull his stuff out and just sit there and

798
00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 22: just read for like a whole day, just read whatever.

799
00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 22: I was so curious. I was just so I wanted

800
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:37,400
Speaker 22: to know. I wanted to know what the heck this

801
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 22: was about.

802
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 8: Leonard learned not just about his father, but about Indigenous history.

803
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:45,279
Speaker 22: I didn't know that they were forbidden to wear their

804
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 22: hair long or to speak their own language. I didn't

805
00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:51,719
Speaker 22: know these things. I became consciously aware of who I

806
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:59,000
Speaker 22: was as a person because of him.

807
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 4: We think of the gis history as the first chapter

808
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 4: in our history books. There's always an oil painting with

809
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:08,359
Speaker 4: some European white man in fancy bloomers handing a red

810
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:10,520
Speaker 4: cloth and some beads to an Indigenous man with a

811
00:46:10,520 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 4: stern face. But Native history didn't stop there. It was

812
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:19,360
Speaker 4: only fifty years ago that Richard Oaks proclaimed Alcatraz Island

813
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:23,640
Speaker 4: a Native nation, and fights over land and resources continue today.

814
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 7: Just look at Standing Rock.

815
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 8: Richard Oaks stood up for Native people at every turn,

816
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:31,919
Speaker 8: and ultimately.

817
00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 10: It cost him his life.

818
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:36,840
Speaker 8: But while his indigenous mecca on Alcatraz failed, Richard and

819
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:40,239
Speaker 8: his fellow occupiers inspired a movement in which members of

820
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:42,919
Speaker 8: all tribes saw their fate as connected to each other.

821
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 10: As Richard said, Alcatraz is not an island, It's an idea.

822
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:51,320
Speaker 6: You get the feeling when I read these things.

823
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:57,239
Speaker 7: The story is not over. This thing is not even completed.

824
00:47:16,360 --> 00:47:17,800
Speaker 11: It's been fifty.

825
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:21,760
Speaker 1: Years since the occupation, and since then, on Indigenous People's

826
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 1: Day and on Thanksgiving, hundreds of people gather on Alcatraz

827
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 1: for a sunrise ceremony, a celebration of Indigenous history with

828
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:34,319
Speaker 1: prayers and traditional dancing that also pays tribute to the

829
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:43,400
Speaker 1: Alcatraz occupiers. One of them was Richard Oakes.

830
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 12: Can you remember the time that you have held your

831
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:58,520
Speaker 12: hand high and hold all.

832
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:04,480
Speaker 20: Your friends of your Indian claim, proud good lady and

833
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 20: proud good man, your great great grandfather from Indian blood sprang?

834
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:15,840
Speaker 20: And you feel in your heart for these ones?

835
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 7: As it stange come about Uncle Sam?

836
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:25,680
Speaker 5: Or are still taking our lines.

837
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:27,640
Speaker 20: A treaty forever?

838
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 12: George Washington sign?

839
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:32,280
Speaker 7: He didn't you, lady?

840
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:34,320
Speaker 3: He did your.

841
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:39,320
Speaker 20: Man and attorney's being broken by himselor damn?

842
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 11: And what will you do.

843
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:43,040
Speaker 7: For these ones?

844
00:48:44,239 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 12: Oh, it's all in the past, you can say, but

845
00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:53,280
Speaker 12: it's still going on here today.

846
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 1: This episode originally aired in November of twenty eighteen. It

847
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 1: was produced by Antonia se Rjuilo and Cianas Yamoca, edited

848
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:08,760
Speaker 1: by Sophia Palisakar and mixed by Stephanie LAbau. The Latino

849
00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 1: USA team includes mik Dori Estrada, Rinaldo, Leanoz Junior, Andrea

850
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:18,760
Speaker 1: Lopez Cruzado, Lori mar Marquez, Marta Martinez, Benileei Ramirez, Mike Sargent,

851
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 1: Nor Saudi and Nancy Trujillo. Our senior engineer is Julia Caruso,

852
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:29,359
Speaker 1: Additional engineering support by Gabriel Abiez and jj Carubin. Our

853
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:33,560
Speaker 1: marketing manager is Luis Luna. Our theme music was composed

854
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:37,319
Speaker 1: by Sea Rubinos. I'm your host and executive producer Maria

855
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:40,239
Speaker 1: no Posa. Join us again on our next episode. In

856
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:42,960
Speaker 1: the meantime, look for us on your social media and

857
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:47,759
Speaker 1: as always, remember note bayes pasta approxima jao.

858
00:49:50,719 --> 00:49:55,360
Speaker 18: Latino USA is made possible in part by California Endowment

859
00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:59,000
Speaker 18: building a strong state by improving the health of all Californians,

860
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:03,640
Speaker 18: Ward Foundation working with visionaries on the front lines of

861
00:50:03,719 --> 00:50:08,680
Speaker 18: social change worldwide, and the John D. And Catherine T.

862
00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:09,760
Speaker 18: MacArthur Foundation.

863
00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:16,239
Speaker 10: Picture Brooklyn in the early nineteen fifties.

864
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:18,319
Speaker 7: That's basically what she does