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Speaker 1: He's mister Harmon.

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Speaker 2: All right.

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Speaker 3: Thanks to Harmon, I had yes, say hi, I have

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Speaker 3: a proclamation I'd like to read you.

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Speaker 4: It was nineteen sixty nine and twenty seven year old

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Speaker 4: Native student Richard Oaks was standing on Alcatraz Island, the

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Speaker 4: famous prison off the coast of San Francisco. It had

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Speaker 4: been standing empty for the last six years.

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Speaker 3: The Native Americans reclaimed this land, known as Alcatraz Island

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Speaker 3: in the name of all American Indians by writer Discovery

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Speaker 3: by Alcatraz.

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Speaker 5: Everybody can see it.

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Speaker 3: On one end of the country. You have the statue

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Speaker 3: of liberty, and this is It's just the opposite. We

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Speaker 3: have a true reality of liberty.

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Speaker 4: For centuries, conquerors and settlers stole land from indigenous tribes

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Speaker 4: and struck up treaties they never intended to follow. And

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Speaker 4: so years later, in nineteen sixty nine, Richard and fellow

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Speaker 4: Native activists drew up their own deal for Alcatraz.

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Speaker 3: We wish to be fair and honorable in our dealings

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Speaker 3: with the Caucasian inhabitants of this land, and hereby all

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Speaker 3: of the following treat we will purchase set Alcatraz Island

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Speaker 3: for twenty four dollars in glass beads and red cloth.

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Speaker 3: A president set by the white man's purchase of a

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Speaker 3: similar island about three hundred years ago.

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Speaker 4: Richard had a sparkle in his eye. He looked over

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Speaker 4: Alcatraz with the dream of creating an indigenous mecca.

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Speaker 3: Richard, can you describe for me again what it is

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Speaker 3: you hope to build here on Alcatraz? Bill the Nation.

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Speaker 4: From Futuro Media and PRX. It's Latino USA. I'm Maria

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Speaker 4: j Josa today A show from our archives. The story

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Speaker 4: of Richard Oakes, a founding leader of the Red Power Movement.

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Speaker 4: In the late nineteen sixties, organizations like the Black Panthers,

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Speaker 4: the Brown Berets, and the Young Lords were starting a

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Speaker 4: national conversation about equal rights and protections. At the same time,

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Speaker 4: an indigenous rights movement, the Red Power Movement, was also

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Speaker 4: gathering steam. Richard Oaks, a charismatic citizen of the Mohawk Nation,

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Speaker 4: was one of its founders, and he advocated resistance through

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Speaker 4: reclaiming land from the white man. Alcatraz would become a

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Speaker 4: symbol of Native resistance for Indigenous people of all tribes,

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Speaker 4: and the Red Power Movement would lay down the foundation

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Speaker 4: for future Native movements like Standing Rock. And so today

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Speaker 4: we're telling the story of the life of Richard Oaks,

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Speaker 4: from how he got involved in the Red Power movement

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Speaker 4: and the occupation of Alcatraz to his untimely death when

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Speaker 4: he was shot in the heart at the young age

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Speaker 4: of only thirty. Producers Janice Jamoca and Antoya Sa Dehido

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Speaker 4: tell us his story from the beginning.

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Speaker 6: Picture of Brooklyn in the early nineteen fifties, back when

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Speaker 6: the Dodgers were sold the Brooklyn Dodgers, they lived a

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Speaker 6: small family, two brothers and their single mom. The eldest

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Speaker 6: brother was named Richard Oakes. Richard and his brother had

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Speaker 6: a typical childhood. They played stickball in the streets, walked

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Speaker 6: their dog, and watched the Perry Como show at home, Silver.

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Speaker 7: And Go, Silver and Gone.

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Speaker 2: Everyone searched by silver and.

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Speaker 6: But 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 6: Gona Wage and Aquesasne Mohawks moved to the city from

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Speaker 6: the reservations in Canada and Northern New York seeking opportunity,

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Speaker 6: but they often faced discrimination applying for work. Since iron

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Speaker 6: working was a job that not many wanted to do.

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Speaker 6: It required being one hundred feet in the air without

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Speaker 6: a safety harness. Many Mohawks filled these jobs. There was

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Speaker 6: even a bar in the neighborhood called the Wigwam. It's

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Speaker 6: closed now, but there used to be a sign posted

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Speaker 6: over the door that read the greatest iron workers in

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Speaker 6: 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 Aquasosni, the reservation 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 onandaga 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 Oaks, and

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Speaker 8: he's Native too.

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Speaker 6: Richard grew into a strong young man, over two hundred

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Speaker 6: pounds and over six feet tall. He started hanging out

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Speaker 6: with neighborhood Native gangs and got into fights, fights that

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Speaker 6: he would win. At sixteen years old, he dropped out

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Speaker 6: of high school and joined the legacy of Mohawk iron workers,

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Speaker 6: but he kept getting in trouble. When Richard was about twenty,

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Speaker 6: he was charged with assault and robbery and served some

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Speaker 6: 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 6: Within a year, Richard's charges were reduced and he was

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Speaker 6: 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 Mary.

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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. He said he was going to make sure

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

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

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Speaker 8: a criminal background. Richard felt threatened and didn't see any

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Speaker 8: other choice 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 6: He quit his job that same year. He said goodbye

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Speaker 6: to everyone he knew, and he decided to start over

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Speaker 6: by driving his red Ford Mustang across the country to

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Speaker 6: San Francisco. Richard dropped out of the public school system

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Speaker 6: when he was sixteen, but on his journey west, he

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Speaker 6: 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 6: Termination was a federal policy introduced in nineteen fifty three

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Speaker 6: by Utah Senator Arthur Watkins basically and meant the government

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Speaker 6: stopped recognizing 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 healthcare and education. But with

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

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

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

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Speaker 8: quote americanize the Native people.

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Speaker 2: Deserving the red man to live his own life and

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Speaker 2: manage his own affairs. It's obvious there always must be

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Speaker 2: influence by the majority of inhabitants in the United States

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Speaker 2: to change the habits and customs of the minority. Such

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Speaker 2: influences intended to be nothing other than helpful to raise

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Speaker 2: the Indian standard of living, to make him happier. And

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Speaker 2: 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 tax status,

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Speaker 8: which drove some tribes to go bankrupt.

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Speaker 6: The result, schools on reservations were no longer funded, so

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Speaker 6: Native children couldn't get an education near home, and the

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Speaker 6: Act left many Natives homeless because they weren't able to

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Speaker 6: pay the new property taxes. And there was another program

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Speaker 6: at the same time called relocation, which also paid people

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Speaker 6: to go to big cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and

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Speaker 6: San Francisco. They gave them a one way ticket, the

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Speaker 6: promise of housing, a stipend, and some kind of job training.

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Speaker 6: Both these policies Termination and relocation pushed Indigenous people to

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Speaker 6: leave their reservations and moved to the cities. Back in

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Speaker 6: nineteen sixty eight, Richard was driving across the country and

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Speaker 6: seeing firsthand how these policies had affected Native people. When

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Speaker 6: he arrived in San Francisco, he discovered it actually had

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Speaker 6: a vibrant, urgeoning indigenous community. Richard quickly fell into life there,

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Speaker 6: met and married a woman named Anne Marufo. She was

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Speaker 6: a single mom with six kids from a previous marriage.

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Speaker 6: 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: Lyneida war Jazz.

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Speaker 10: I was that next generation that they were desperately trying

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Speaker 10: to get us into the cities so that we would

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Speaker 10: melt into the melting pot and become assimilated.

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Speaker 8: Lenita 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 10: I just understood that after high school you go to college,

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Speaker 10: so that was always my intention. And when I got

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Speaker 10: out here, the university making the loudest noise was at

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Speaker 10: UC Berkeley, and I said, I want to go over there.

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Speaker 8: Lenida 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 6: Red Power was an inner tribal movement all about self determination,

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Speaker 6: the right for Native communities to govern themselves, and the

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Speaker 6: movement fought for that right by reclaiming land, restoring broken treaties,

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Speaker 6: and preserving Native history.

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Speaker 10: You know, I met so many people at that time.

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Speaker 10: Everything was just exciting. But you know, I just I

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Speaker 10: can't remember when I first met Richard, but you know,

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Speaker 10: I just knew him. It was like I've always known him.

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Speaker 6: She remembers Richard from social gatherings and local palwows. At

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Speaker 6: the time, twenty six year old Richard Oakes was working

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Speaker 6: as a bartender, but also as a community organizer. The

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Speaker 6: war he worked at had turned into a watering hole

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Speaker 6: for activists and student politics. Eventually, he was recruited to

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Speaker 6: run the newly formed Native American Studies Department at San

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Speaker 6: 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 5: Davis real frenity. Yeah, he's friendly, but he was determined,

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Speaker 5: you know, and he had wanted to talk about teens

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Speaker 5: that needed to be done. And he asked me, he said,

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Speaker 5: when all the chicano is going to realize that they're Indians?

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Speaker 5: And I says, but at the same time, the Indians

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Speaker 5: 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 5: Well, I can't describe him, but I can tell you

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Speaker 5: what my wife said. She said he was a movie

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Speaker 5: started 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 11: I'm cutting my own way through my own day, and

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Speaker 11: 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 6: Dean Shavers, a citizen of the Lumby Nation and a

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Speaker 6: junior East C Berkeley, remembers the first time he heard

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Speaker 6: about this plan.

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Speaker 12: I met Richard when he came to UC Berkeley and

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Speaker 12: he asked us to go help him take over Alcatraz Island.

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Speaker 12: It was very casually mentioned. This was at an end

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Speaker 12: of the year party at one of the students's apartments,

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Speaker 12: and I looked at him and said, you're crazy. I

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Speaker 12: don't want that prison.

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Speaker 6: Alcatraz Island is a tourist attraction today, but in nineteen

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Speaker 6: sixty nine, it was a small, abandoned island surrounded by

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Speaker 6: turbulent water just north of San Francisco Bay. The only

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Speaker 6: way to get there was by boat. As a federal prison,

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Speaker 6: it once held some of the country's most notorious criminals,

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Speaker 6: like al Capone and George Machine Gun Kelly, but it

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Speaker 6: closed in nineteen sixty three because it was too expensive

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Speaker 6: to keep running, and it had been sitting empty for

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Speaker 6: six years.

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Speaker 10: And Richard called me and he says, do you want

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Speaker 10: to go out on a boat ride around Alcatraz? And

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Speaker 10: so I said sure.

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Speaker 6: Here's why this plan to take over Alcatraz actually made sense.

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Speaker 6: According to a treaty from the eighties hundreds, the US

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Speaker 6: government is responsible for returning all abandoned and out of

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Speaker 6: use federal lands to Native people. This treaty, like so

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Speaker 6: many others made with Native people in the past had

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Speaker 6: been broken by the US government, but the students argued

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Speaker 6: that the treaty still applied and they could use it

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Speaker 6: rightfully to reclaim their land. And since Alcatraz was now

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Speaker 6: abandoned and it was federal land, they felt the island

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Speaker 6: should be returned to the native community. But word was

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Speaker 6: going around that Alcatraz was going to be sold and

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Speaker 6: turned into a casino.

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Speaker 10: When we looked at that, it was like, oh, they're

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Speaker 10: breaking another treaty, you know, right in front of our

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Speaker 10: face in this day and age, and that was just like,

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Speaker 10: let's go take it.

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Speaker 8: Inspired by the same treaty, a group of Sioux activists

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Speaker 8: had tried to take over the island in nineteen sixty four,

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Speaker 8: five years earlier, but that occupation had only lasted a

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Speaker 8: couple of hours. This time, Richard and the Native act

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Speaker 8: of this, We're going to try bigger and riskier. They

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Speaker 8: were going to move onto the island permanently.

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Speaker 4: Coming up on Latino USA. The plan is set in motion.

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Speaker 4: Stay with us, not the US, and we're back when

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Speaker 4: we left off. The Red Power movement was going full

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Speaker 4: force in the nineteen sixties in San Francisco, and they

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Speaker 4: were about to make a power play occupying the abandoned

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Speaker 4: island of Alcatraz. Producer Jennie Yamoca and Antonia Serejidro pick

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Speaker 4: up this story.

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Speaker 6: The students would make a total of three attempts to

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Speaker 6: occupy Alcatraz Island. The first time was on November ninth,

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Speaker 6: nineteen sixty nine, and it was set up essentially to

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Speaker 6: be a publicity stunt. Local media was there to capture

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Speaker 6: the students pow wow dancing and singing on the pier.

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Speaker 6: The cameras were rolling and Richard was wearing a black

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Speaker 6: cardigan and a turquoise beaded headband wrapped around his head.

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Speaker 6: Then he started reading from a collectively written document, the

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Speaker 6: Alcatraz Proclamation, the same one we heard at the beginning

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Speaker 6: of the story.

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Speaker 3: We feel that the so called Alcatraz Island is more

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Speaker 3: than suitable for an Indian reservation as determined by the

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Speaker 3: white man's own standards. By this remained that this place

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Speaker 3: resembles most Indian reservations in that one it is isolated

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Speaker 3: from modern facilities and without adequate means of transportation. Two

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Speaker 3: it has no fresh running water. Three it has inadequate

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Speaker 3: sanitation facilities.

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Speaker 7: Four there are no oil for.

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Speaker 13: 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, boarded,

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Speaker 8: and the captain of the ship fired off a 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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00:17:59,720 --> 00:18:03,000
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 14: Where is it?

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

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Speaker 8: is he?

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Speaker 13: Referring to Richard?

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Speaker 15: Pick you up.

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Speaker 6: The coast guard picked them up right away and brought

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Speaker 6: them back to San Francisco. But that night the activists

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Speaker 6: were already plotting how to get back for their second attempt.

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Speaker 6: They got another boat to take them to Alcatraz secretly

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Speaker 6: in the middle of the night. Here's Leneda again.

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Speaker 10: The coast guard and helicopters and people storming all over

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Speaker 10: the island looking for us, and we were just hiding

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Speaker 10: out in our little secret locations, giggling around. At least

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Speaker 10: I was, you know, it was because it was exciting

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Speaker 10: and it was thrilling, and people were looking for us

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Speaker 10: and they couldn't find us.

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Speaker 6: The activist s day on the island until the next morning,

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Speaker 6: a local reporter found Richard and some occupiers hiding out

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Speaker 6: in the main cell block. Richard told the.

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Speaker 3: I think it's about time this government starts recognizing that

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Speaker 3: we young people like could take over our own destiny.

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Speaker 6: The second small takeover was a hit with local media.

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Speaker 6: The activists had lasted overnight.

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Speaker 3: The Indian occupation was a short lived one and a

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Speaker 3: peaceful one, but they say they'll continue to press their

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Speaker 3: claim for the island and the center they could build

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Speaker 3: 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 12: Well, I went to the Native American student office at

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Speaker 12: eight o'clock that Monday morning and their pope place was

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Speaker 12: going crazy, and I said, what's going on? And one

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Speaker 12: of the Ghols she says, well, Richard and lend and

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Speaker 12: him swam over to Alcatraz and occupied it last night.

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Speaker 12: 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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00:19:50,760 --> 00:19:53,840
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 12: We got our sleeping bags out, got our pots and pans,

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Speaker 12: getting ready to go, get on into the boats and

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Speaker 12: 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 6: The next morning, press began to gather, and of course

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Speaker 6: everybody's thought why.

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Speaker 12: The reporters really said, why, why you want a president? Well,

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Speaker 12: we're going to make it a university. That's Richard's idea.

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Speaker 6: The activists didn't just want to move in. They wanted

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Speaker 6: to create an Indigenous mecca. They wanted to build a

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Speaker 6: Native studies program, with a traveling university, a Native spiritual center,

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Speaker 6: a Native museum, and they even wanted a restaurant fully

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Speaker 6: run and operated by Native people. And this time the

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Speaker 6: occupation grabbed the nation's attention, including the White House. 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 6: Many indigenous activists at the time, including Lenada and Dean,

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Speaker 6: have actually said that Nixon was one of the best

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Speaker 6: presidents to the indigenous community. President Nixon's football coach in

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Speaker 6: college while as Newman, was Native, and he was a

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Speaker 6: man that Nixon said he admired only second to his father.

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Speaker 6: According to Kent, Nixon was very concerned about the well

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Speaker 6: being 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: raise 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, and the.

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Speaker 6: Federal government didn't seem to have a plan This is

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Speaker 6: te Hennon from the Government Services Administration, which oversaw Acatraz Island.

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Speaker 16: From Once you say that, are you prepared to let

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Speaker 16: the Indians remain there for an indefinite curiad of no,

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Speaker 16: I am not.

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Speaker 1: Then you must have a deadline. I have not set

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Speaker 1: a deadline. Well, then they can stay there indefinitely, that's

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Speaker 1: 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 12: Bread cakes, sometimes cakes, baloney and a lot of bread

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Speaker 12: 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 16: Should have the Fisherman's wharf area when the San Francisco

398
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Speaker 16: Bay has become sort of a ferry service.

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Speaker 1: One boat of Indians comes in from Alcatraz, another one goes.

400
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Speaker 8: Out, and it was freezing. Remember it was mid November.

401
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Speaker 12: I mean we're talking about twenty degrees above thirty above,

402
00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:00,720
Speaker 12: you know at night, and no heating, there's no eating.

403
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Speaker 10: We came from reservations where things were deplorable as it is,

404
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:09,560
Speaker 10: so being out there was was okay.

405
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:13,000
Speaker 8: They also to figure out where people were going to sleep.

406
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Speaker 8: Many lived in empty cells of the huge prison that

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00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:19,440
Speaker 8: once held over fifteen hundred prisoners, but there was one

408
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:22,200
Speaker 8: cell in particular that people actually fought for.

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Speaker 12: The high spot for the people on the island was

410
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Speaker 12: to sleep in the same cell as al Capone, and

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Speaker 12: people did and in fight over I got to sleep

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Speaker 12: at a Capone.

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

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00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:38,200
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 10: I had a really nice room where I had a window.

417
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Speaker 10: One window I could see the Golden Gate and out

418
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:49,080
Speaker 10: the other window I could see the Bay Bridge, So

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Speaker 10: you know, I thought, Wow, this is really nice.

420
00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:59,280
Speaker 6: A week after the occupation began, Thanksgiving approached. Support for

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00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:03,560
Speaker 6: the occupation was strong. Restaurants in San Francisco donated turkeys,

422
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:07,600
Speaker 6: and monetary donations flooded the mailroom at the mainland headquarters.

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00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:10,639
Speaker 6: Native people from across the country, both young and old,

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00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:15,320
Speaker 6: began making the pilgrimage to Alcatraz, and on Thanksgiving Day,

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00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:18,360
Speaker 6: more than three hundred Native people came to the island.

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00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 6: By the end of December, the activists had started Radio

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Speaker 6: Free Alcatraz and were broadcasting live and direct from the island.

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Speaker 17: Over good evening this John Trudell from Radio Free Alcatraz

429
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:38,719
Speaker 17: and welcoming you to Indianland Alcatraz on behalf of the

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00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:39,880
Speaker 17: Indians of All Tribes.

431
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 6: The host, a Santa Dakota named John Trudell, used borrowed

432
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 6: and donated radio equipment and talked about life on the island.

433
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 6: It was a way for others to hear all across

434
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:52,280
Speaker 6: the country what was going on with their movement.

435
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:55,760
Speaker 8: And people were raising money for the occupiers. Musicians put

436
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:58,679
Speaker 8: on rock and folk benefit shows, including Buffy Saint Marie

437
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 8: a Piapot Cree folk musician.

438
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 18: Hennie thinks We'll put an end to aar this way.

439
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:08,840
Speaker 8: Celebrities started coming out to visit the island, including Anthony

440
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:12,199
Speaker 8: Quinn and Ethel Kennedy. Jane Fonda, one of the biggest

441
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:15,119
Speaker 8: starts to visit the island, even invited Leneda. What the

442
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:17,879
Speaker 8: time was Lineieda means to speak on the MERV Griffin

443
00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 8: and Dick Cavitt Show.

444
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:20,440
Speaker 6: Don Introduce your Indian friend.

445
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:24,200
Speaker 18: Yes, Yes, I have a girl An Indian called Leneeda

446
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 18: means yes.

447
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 8: The occupation was getting all of this attention, the late

448
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 8: night shows, the music shows, and at the same time,

449
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,720
Speaker 8: politically things were moving along. A bill was presented to

450
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 8: the House of Representatives in December of nineteen sixty nine

451
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:48,160
Speaker 8: to quote give Alcatraz back to the Indians. It would

452
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:50,760
Speaker 8: give the occupiers full governance of the island.

453
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 1: It has worked his way through Washington's bureaucratic mill.

454
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:56,120
Speaker 6: For months, but the bill failed.

455
00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 1: Last week the government said no, it would not give

456
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:00,920
Speaker 1: them the island, but it would make it a national

457
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 1: park on Alcatraz. The Indians gave their reply, the start

458
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: all of it.

459
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:08,919
Speaker 15: This is a.

460
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:11,560
Speaker 3: Starting place from all American Indians around.

461
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:17,200
Speaker 6: Around tensions were starting to flare up. Richard was getting

462
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 6: a reputation for being a hot head and would often

463
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 6: let these conflicts escalate into physical fights. A conference that

464
00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 6: was supposed to attract thousands to Alcatraz two days before

465
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:29,919
Speaker 6: Christmas had low attendance. News from the occupation started to

466
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:33,040
Speaker 6: wane as other issues and scandals took over the headlines,

467
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 6: like the Manson murders.

468
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 7: Police said they were a pseudo religious cult.

469
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 3: People who worked on the ranch said they were heavy users.

470
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:44,320
Speaker 8: Of drugs, and six weeks into the occupation, many occupiers

471
00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 8: who were students started to leave the island to resume

472
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:50,840
Speaker 8: their classes as the adults held meetings with politicians and

473
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 8: planned their next steps. The children, remember whole families came

474
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 8: onto the island, were often left on their own.

475
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 13: Here's lineda.

476
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 10: The kids were kind of their own little organization and group.

477
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:05,879
Speaker 10: But we did have the Big Rock School there for

478
00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 10: a while where they, you know, went to school. But

479
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 10: after our teachers left then they just ran around the

480
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:18,120
Speaker 10: island and it was pretty scary trying to think, oh,

481
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 10: where's your kid. You know. It was just exciting for them.

482
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 10: They were having a great time, and of course it

483
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:29,439
Speaker 10: was unfortunate what happened to Richard's daughter.

484
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 8: Some of the children were running around unchaperoned, including Richard's

485
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 8: daughter Yvonne.

486
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:45,640
Speaker 10: They had run up the steps to the very top

487
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 10: with the guards quarters, and when they got up there,

488
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:52,239
Speaker 10: they used to have this thing where they thought they

489
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:54,880
Speaker 10: were really big shots if they spit over the rail

490
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:59,400
Speaker 10: at the top, and so they would get up there

491
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 10: and that spin over the reim and she went to

492
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 10: do that and she leaned too far over and that's

493
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 10: when she fell.

494
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:14,399
Speaker 8: Richard's son, Leonard Oaks, was a young boy living on

495
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:15,800
Speaker 8: the island when it happened.

496
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 6: I remember.

497
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:20,359
Speaker 10: My oldest sister.

498
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 19: She had fallen and she hit her head on the

499
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 19: corner of a brick slab. It had split her head

500
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 19: from one temple to the other.

501
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:34,639
Speaker 8: Yvonne suffered a fractured skull and brain injuries.

502
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:36,160
Speaker 13: They had to take her off the.

503
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 8: Island because there was no hospital or doctor that could

504
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 8: attend to her, and after five days she passed away

505
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 8: at a hospital in San Francisco.

506
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 20: Who comes to.

507
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:52,080
Speaker 15: Pay our final respects to Yvonne Rose Oaks. She is

508
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 15: the daughter of Richard and Anna Os. She died for

509
00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 15: the Indians of our prize after Prayer's Island.

510
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 6: Richard's children remember how painful this loss was for their mother.

511
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 13: She lost a daughter there.

512
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 7: She came out and found her daughter.

513
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 6: This is fun. At the time, Anne, Richard's wife, was

514
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 6: pregnant with her I was in her stomach. Fawn was

515
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:33,960
Speaker 6: born shortly after the accident, and even though they called

516
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:37,560
Speaker 6: her Vaan her whole life, her legal name is Yvonne.

517
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 10: And I'm named after.

518
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 7: I am named after her.

519
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 6: After the accident, Richard and his family left the island

520
00:29:55,800 --> 00:29:56,840
Speaker 6: and they didn't return.

521
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:09,720
Speaker 4: Coming up on Latino, USA, Richard Oakes tries to find

522
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 4: meaning after the death of his daughter and the fate

523
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 4: of the Alcatraz occupation. Stay with us, not yes, welcome back.

524
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 4: In the midst of the occupation of Alcatraz, Native activist

525
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 4: Richard Oakes suffered a great personal tragedy and he decided

526
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 4: to leave the island. Now he had to find a

527
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 4: new way forward. Producers genese Yamoca and Antonia se de

528
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 4: Hide pick up this story.

529
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 8: As Richard was grappling with the terrible death of his daughter,

530
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 8: the Red Power movement on Alcatraz and around the country

531
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 8: was actually growing quickly.

532
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 9: There was movements that were popping up all across the country,

533
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 9: and of course the press was having a field day

534
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 9: in the sense of covering what is this new Native

535
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 9: movement and trying to figure out what is red power?

536
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 8: Indigenous occupations like Alcatraz were happening across the country, from

537
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 8: Ellis Island in New York to Pyramid Lake in Nevada.

538
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 8: Only months after Avon's passing, Richard was already planning on

539
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 8: getting involved in another major protest.

540
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 13: Dean Richard's friend came along.

541
00:31:56,320 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 12: Richard and I took off in like march and went

542
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 12: the Bit River and stayed for six months. So when

543
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 12: Richard says we got to go up there and help

544
00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 12: those guys try to get some land back, is that okay?

545
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 8: I'm in Well, the occupation of Alcatraz was still ongoing.

546
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 8: Richard left for Reading, California. The plan in Reading was

547
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 8: to help the Pitt River Nation reclaim traditional lands from

548
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 8: the federal government. Native activists decided they were going to

549
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 8: trespass on the land and purposely get arrested in order

550
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 8: to bring attention to their claim.

551
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 7: The impression one comes away with here is one of

552
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 7: other disbelief that a small band of Indians can really

553
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,360
Speaker 7: expect the federal government to sign all this land away.

554
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 7: And perhaps it will never happen, But one thing seems

555
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 7: certainly clear. The Pitt River Indians are not about to

556
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 7: give up.

557
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 8: Pacific Gas and Electric also known as pg ANDY, currently

558
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:46,080
Speaker 8: occupied much of the land that the Pitt River tribe

559
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 8: wanted to reclaim. PIG and He had also set up

560
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,840
Speaker 8: a camp for their employees to use as a vacation spot,

561
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:54,480
Speaker 8: and so Richard and the other activists decided to occupy

562
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 8: that summer camp.

563
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 13: In the middle of the night, about.

564
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 16: Three o'clock this morning, two of our families were vacationing

565
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 16: up there, woke up to some noise, and at this

566
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 16: point Richard Oaks informed them that they had nothing to

567
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 16: worry about. Don't be alarmed. They're not going to do

568
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:12,480
Speaker 16: any damage, but that this was merely a political move

569
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 16: on their part.

570
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:15,959
Speaker 6: It was a political move because the point of occupying

571
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 6: wasn't to stay there, like it wasn't Alcatraz, but rather

572
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 6: to purposefully get arrested for trespassing, and then once arrested,

573
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 6: they would have to go to court. They hoped the

574
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:28,600
Speaker 6: trial would force the court to legally assess if they

575
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:31,400
Speaker 6: were trespassing or not. If the land belonged to the

576
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:35,520
Speaker 6: Pitt River tribe. According to law, they weren't trespassing after all.

577
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 6: The activists actually won the case, but a lot happened

578
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:43,239
Speaker 6: after the trial was over. One night, while they were

579
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 6: in the midst of the Pitt River occupation, Richard and

580
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 6: fellow activists went out in San Francisco to a bar.

581
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 6: That night, Richard got into a bar fight and he

582
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 6: ended up getting hit in the head with a poll

583
00:33:56,640 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 6: qu Richard would lay nconscious and without medical attention for

584
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:09,319
Speaker 6: ten hours that night. It was not until early the

585
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:13,720
Speaker 6: next morning that Anne realized something was wrong. She rushed

586
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:16,120
Speaker 6: them to the hospital, where they were performed brain surgery,

587
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 6: and for thirteen days he was in a coma. Richard's

588
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 6: condition made headlines and local news, especially when, in a

589
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,760
Speaker 6: last ditch effort to improve his health, two indigenous medicine

590
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 6: men came to the side of his hospital bed to

591
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:32,120
Speaker 6: see if they can help him heal well.

592
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:37,239
Speaker 20: We administered certain herbs and together with their prayers to

593
00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:41,000
Speaker 20: the Creator, to the Great Spirit for the recovery of

594
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:44,400
Speaker 20: Richard Oaks.

595
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 8: Richard was bedridden for all of July. The entire left

596
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:52,120
Speaker 8: side of his body was paralyzed and his face was

597
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:55,919
Speaker 8: still puffy from all the bruises. It had been eight

598
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 8: months since he left Alcatraz. The occupation he helped start

599
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:01,880
Speaker 8: was still happening on the island, but it was losing

600
00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:02,840
Speaker 8: support and attention.

601
00:35:03,440 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 7: Things have fallen apart in the year they've been here.

602
00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 2: The building seemed to.

603
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:11,279
Speaker 1: Be burning down one by one, the garbage just piling up.

604
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:13,440
Speaker 1: The lighthouse is broken.

605
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:16,319
Speaker 8: Then, while Richard was in the hospital, he learned that

606
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:21,760
Speaker 8: President Nixon had released an unprecedented statement regarding Indigenous affairs today.

607
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:25,400
Speaker 1: President Nixon said they were the most deprived minority group

608
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: in this country.

609
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 8: Then he called for a new era of Indigenous affairs

610
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 8: all around self determination. He reinstated federal recognition of individual tribes,

611
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:37,280
Speaker 8: and he even gave some land back to the Taos

612
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 8: Pueblo tribe.

613
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 21: States for seven hundred years, the Taois Pueblo Indians worshiped

614
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:46,400
Speaker 21: in this place, and we restore this place of worship

615
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 21: to them for all the years to come.

616
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:52,399
Speaker 8: This was a very hopeful moment for the occupiers still

617
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 8: on Alcatraz. For Linda, it was staggering to hear the

618
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 8: president recognize the harm done to her community.

619
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:04,960
Speaker 10: Nixon Lyn's champ and all that, and Natives around the

620
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:09,000
Speaker 10: nation just really perked up, you know, because we were

621
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:14,560
Speaker 10: assimilating into the mainstream of American society, so to speak.

622
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 10: And when that happened, it revived our culture again.

623
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:25,360
Speaker 6: Richard, however, was wary that this was only lip service.

624
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 6: Shortly after Nixon's speech, Richard was released from the hospital,

625
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 6: but he had to use a wheelchair. Eloy Martinez, a

626
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 6: good friend of Richard's, that we heard from earlier saw

627
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:39,080
Speaker 6: Richard speak at a Vietnam rally after he was released.

628
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 5: I had seen him a little bit after he left

629
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 5: the hospital, and I went to see him and again

630
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:46,960
Speaker 5: another Vietnam rally, and they they brought him out in

631
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:49,920
Speaker 5: a wheelchair, you know, and you could hardly hear her speak,

632
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 5: and I really just I don't know. It was really

633
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:55,880
Speaker 5: really bad because he was such a vibrant person.

634
00:36:56,840 --> 00:37:00,880
Speaker 6: Richard eventually regained the ability to walk and participate in protests,

635
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:03,239
Speaker 6: but things were not going well for the family. He

636
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 6: struggled to find work because of his physical condition, but

637
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:09,279
Speaker 6: he continued over the next few months organizing with a

638
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 6: pit River Nation and activists were still occupying Alcatraz until

639
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:15,360
Speaker 6: the tide turned.

640
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 14: What had started as a symbolic invasion in November of

641
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,760
Speaker 14: nineteen sixty nine, and later turned into a bitter struggle

642
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:24,240
Speaker 14: for the small band of Indians who vowed to hold

643
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 14: Alcatraz forever, was ended here today.

644
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:29,640
Speaker 8: After a year and a half of the occupation, there

645
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 8: were only fifteen occupiers left on the island. The government

646
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:35,720
Speaker 8: said that a few occupiers had stolen and sold copper

647
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:38,719
Speaker 8: wiring from the buildings on Alcatraz to get more money.

648
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 15: Gamed our attention this morning, consisting of some copper cable

649
00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:46,360
Speaker 15: which was sold on the mainland according to a complaint

650
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:47,240
Speaker 15: which was pulled.

651
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,560
Speaker 8: And using this as a justification, US marshals and the

652
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:54,440
Speaker 8: Coastguard went in and removed the remaining occupiers from Alcatraz.

653
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:58,319
Speaker 8: The press interviewed Richard right away about Alcatraz, to which

654
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:02,080
Speaker 8: he said what would become his most famous quote, Alcatraz

655
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:07,520
Speaker 8: is not an island, it's an idea.

656
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 9: The island itself. It's a movement, and that this movement

657
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:19,440
Speaker 9: will slowly begin to kind of take over America.

658
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:24,120
Speaker 6: The occupation of Alcatraz was much more than just reclaiming

659
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 6: that particular piece of land. It was about awakening the

660
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 6: American and even global public to the issues that Indigenous

661
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:33,920
Speaker 6: people were facing, including the stripping away of their land

662
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:37,400
Speaker 6: and culture, and they hoped to galvanize a new generation

663
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:44,560
Speaker 6: of Indigenous people. For the Oaks family, even though they

664
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 6: were not on the island when the occupation ended, it

665
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 6: was still a difficult time. Richard started working on a

666
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:53,719
Speaker 6: greenhouse farm. The family was still struggling with money, and

667
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 6: his injuries left him walking with a limb. By now,

668
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:59,839
Speaker 6: the family had moved onto the Kashia Reservation. But when

669
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:03,880
Speaker 6: Richard's son remembers that time, he doesn't remember his father

670
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:07,520
Speaker 6: as a beaten man. One memory in particular stands out.

671
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:10,279
Speaker 19: And I remember we were standing in the middle of

672
00:39:10,320 --> 00:39:13,480
Speaker 19: the road and he was holding my hand. He goes,

673
00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:15,879
Speaker 19: you want to race? And I looked up at him

674
00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 19: and I go no, And he goes, why not, And

675
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 19: he goes, cause you're hurt. I told him, here's no,

676
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 19: let's race. So we raced, and we raced down to

677
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:26,480
Speaker 19: the school and then we raced back. Yeah he beat me.

678
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:29,279
Speaker 6: He beat me on that, you know.

679
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 19: I was my little legs are moving as fast as

680
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:35,279
Speaker 19: they can, but yeah, he beat me. And I remember that.

681
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 6: Richard spent a lot of time writing. He was working

682
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:41,600
Speaker 6: on a manifesto. He had always had a vision of

683
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:45,400
Speaker 6: himself traveling the country, going to colleges and universities to

684
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:48,240
Speaker 6: help preserve Native history. Here's Eloy again.

685
00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 5: He had bought a school bus and he's getting ready

686
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:52,760
Speaker 5: to take him and his family, like, you know, traveling,

687
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 5: talking to Indian people all over and tell what was

688
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 5: going on. He never made it to the school bus.

689
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 8: This is where Richard's story comes to an abrupt end.

690
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 8: The way it happened is both upsetting and elusive. Here

691
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 8: are the things we know for sure. Richard's family started

692
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:15,880
Speaker 8: to frequent the nearby YMCA. They had horses that the

693
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 8: kids like to ride on, and it was a community

694
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:19,880
Speaker 8: center that many families visited.

695
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:22,239
Speaker 13: Here's Kent, Richard's biographer.

696
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,439
Speaker 9: Once more, there was an employee that started working there

697
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:29,839
Speaker 9: not too soon after Richard and Annie had moved back

698
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:30,520
Speaker 9: to Kashia.

699
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 13: His name was Michael Morgan.

700
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:35,919
Speaker 9: He was a former military police officer who had been

701
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 9: honorably discharged, and so he essentially was the director of

702
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 9: this y camp.

703
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 8: Michael Morgan was said to have been open in his

704
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 8: sustain of Native people. Apparently he once said it was

705
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:51,120
Speaker 8: quote open season on Indians and that Richard Oaks was

706
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:53,439
Speaker 8: a troublemaker and that the country would be better off

707
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:56,759
Speaker 8: without him. Michael was also afraid to Richard. It was

708
00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:59,439
Speaker 8: known that Michael and Richard had had heated arguments about

709
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 8: Indigenous land right issues.

710
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:04,400
Speaker 9: Morgan would kind of go after Richard. He would go

711
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:07,560
Speaker 9: back to his house to go grab a gun, thinking

712
00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:10,399
Speaker 9: that Richard was going to attack him in some capacity.

713
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:13,279
Speaker 9: Even though Richard still was suffering from some of the

714
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 9: debilitating effects of his beating from years before.

715
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,360
Speaker 6: One day, Michael Morgan chased down two Native young men

716
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:24,760
Speaker 6: who he suspected were trying to steal the YMCA's horses.

717
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:28,360
Speaker 6: Michael went after them with a rifle. One of the

718
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 6: boys escaped and the other was held at a gunpoint

719
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:34,160
Speaker 6: until a sheriff came to arrest him. Richard went to

720
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 6: Michael's house to find out what happened to the arrested boy.

721
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:40,520
Speaker 6: Richard was unarmed. This is where the sequence of events

722
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:43,880
Speaker 6: is contested. At the court case that followed, Michael Morgan

723
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:46,640
Speaker 6: would take the stand and claim that Richard lunged at

724
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 6: him and he shot him for fear of losing his

725
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:53,280
Speaker 6: own life. Richard's lawyer argued that given his injuries, Richard

726
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:56,360
Speaker 6: could not have lunged at Michael like he described. The

727
00:41:56,400 --> 00:42:00,480
Speaker 6: bullet Michael shot went straight through Richard's chest. Chard was

728
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:09,840
Speaker 6: thirty years old. Richard's children were at home when it happened.

729
00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:13,040
Speaker 19: When it happened, we've seen it on the TV. My

730
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 19: mom went down there, but we watched it on TV.

731
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:18,720
Speaker 19: I don't know how it happened so fast.

732
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:27,400
Speaker 8: At the trial, Morgan was charged with manslaughter, even though

733
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 8: Richard's family believed the charge should have been murder. After

734
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 8: the jury deliberated for three days, Michael Morgan was acquitted

735
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 8: on March sixteenth, nineteen seventy three. Eloy Martinez was called

736
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:42,320
Speaker 8: up to help the family plan for Richard's funeral.

737
00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:45,759
Speaker 5: And it just turned into kind of a big mess.

738
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:48,439
Speaker 5: The whole thing. Everything was all bad.

739
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 13: They had to scramble to prepare for his burial.

740
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:54,680
Speaker 5: We actually bought him a brown ledged jacket. We runned

741
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:58,880
Speaker 5: a brown ledded jacket and put him in a mortuary.

742
00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:01,319
Speaker 5: And they didn't do the embalming because they didn't have

743
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:04,040
Speaker 5: any money, so they didn't evenbalm him. And then they

744
00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:06,760
Speaker 5: wouldn't release the body to us, you know, because nobody

745
00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:12,440
Speaker 5: had any money. And some white people went into the

746
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 5: mortuary and started complaining about the smell.

747
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:18,880
Speaker 8: Once the funeral finally did come together, hundreds of people

748
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 8: came to pay their respects.

749
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:28,959
Speaker 6: That fall, six hundred people, the largest group of Native

750
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:32,400
Speaker 6: people ever to gather in Washington, d C. Came together

751
00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 6: for a protest called the Trail of Brook and Treaties.

752
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:39,160
Speaker 22: Yesterday, a caravan of cars began converging on Washington bearing

753
00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:42,279
Speaker 22: leaders who represent a coalition of three quarters of our

754
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:45,160
Speaker 22: countries three hundred American Indian tribes.

755
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 6: Native protesters wanted to present the Nixon administration with a

756
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 6: twenty point plan to establish native sovereignty.

757
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:54,880
Speaker 1: A month ago, five hundred angry Indians took over the

758
00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:58,359
Speaker 1: Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, stayed there for a week,

759
00:43:58,400 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 1: and ransacked.

760
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:02,560
Speaker 6: The place, but after a confrontation between protesters and the police,

761
00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:08,759
Speaker 6: the Nixon administration refused to meet with them.

762
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 8: Today, Richard Oaks is remembered by his children. His wife, Anne,

763
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:16,400
Speaker 8: passed in twenty ten, but for many years Richard's family

764
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:19,879
Speaker 8: didn't talk a lot about him. Leonard, who's only five

765
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:22,719
Speaker 8: when his father died, didn't know why. Maybe it was

766
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 8: too painful to talk about. But when he turned twelve,

767
00:44:25,719 --> 00:44:27,320
Speaker 8: he became curious about his father.

768
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 19: As a young boy, I had the opportunity to go

769
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:31,839
Speaker 19: through and read all of these paper clippings.

770
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:34,839
Speaker 8: His mama had collected all the newspaper clippings about his

771
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:35,720
Speaker 8: father in a box.

772
00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:37,759
Speaker 19: There were times when I would go in there and

773
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:39,640
Speaker 19: just pull his stuff out and just sit there and

774
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 19: just read for like a whole day, just read whatever

775
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:47,920
Speaker 19: I was so curious. I was just so I wanted

776
00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:50,400
Speaker 19: to know. I wanted to know what the heck this

777
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 19: was about.

778
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:55,880
Speaker 8: Leonard learned not just about his father, but about Indigenous history.

779
00:44:56,320 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 19: I didn't know that they were forbidden to wear their

780
00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:00,720
Speaker 19: hair long or to speak their own language. I didn't

781
00:45:00,719 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 19: know these things. I became consciously aware of who I

782
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:07,080
Speaker 19: was as a person because of him.

783
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 6: We think of indigenous history as the first chapter in

784
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:18,080
Speaker 6: our history books. There's always an oil painting with some

785
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:21,720
Speaker 6: European white man in fancy bloomers handing a red cloth

786
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:24,240
Speaker 6: and some beads to an Indigenous man with a stern face.

787
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 6: But Native history didn't stop there. It was only fifty

788
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:33,279
Speaker 6: years ago that Richard Oaks proclaimed Alcatraz Island a Native nation,

789
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:37,759
Speaker 6: and fights over land and resources continue today. Just look

790
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 6: at Standing Rock.

791
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:43,160
Speaker 8: Richard Oaks stood up for Native people at every turn,

792
00:45:43,480 --> 00:45:47,080
Speaker 8: and ultimately it cost him his life. But while his

793
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:51,000
Speaker 8: indigenous mecca on Alcatraz failed, Richard and his fellow occupiers

794
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:54,279
Speaker 8: inspired a movement in which members of all tribes saw

795
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:55,919
Speaker 8: their fate as connected to each other.

796
00:45:57,239 --> 00:46:01,480
Speaker 13: As Richard said, Alcatraz is not an island, It's an idea.

797
00:46:02,160 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 19: You get the feeling when I read these things. The

798
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:10,239
Speaker 19: story is not over. This thing is not even completed.

799
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:33,399
Speaker 4: It's been fifty years since the occupation and since then.

800
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:37,480
Speaker 4: On Indigenous People's Day and on Thanksgiving, hundreds of people

801
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:41,560
Speaker 4: gather on Alcatraz for a sunrise ceremony, a celebration of

802
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 4: Indigenous history with prayers and traditional dancing that also pays

803
00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 4: tribute to the Alcatraz occupiers. One of them was Richard Oaks.

804
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 6: Can you remember the time.

805
00:47:06,040 --> 00:47:11,359
Speaker 18: That you have held your head high and told all

806
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:15,320
Speaker 18: your friends of your Indian claim?

807
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:21,319
Speaker 5: Proud good lady, hand, proud good man, your great great.

808
00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:24,000
Speaker 12: Grandfather from Indian blood sprang?

809
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:28,840
Speaker 18: And you feel in your heart for these ones?

810
00:47:29,560 --> 00:47:30,520
Speaker 8: Hasn't change?

811
00:47:30,840 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 6: Come about?

812
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 15: Uncle? Sign?

813
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 10: To are still taking our lines a treaty forever?

814
00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:46,880
Speaker 11: George Washington Sign? He did you, lady, He did you,

815
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:52,320
Speaker 11: dear man. And the Purney's being broken by him for damn?

816
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:57,719
Speaker 11: And what will you do for these ones? Oh, it's

817
00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 11: all in the past, you can, but.

818
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 6: It's still going on here today.

819
00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:14,600
Speaker 4: This episode originally aired in November of twenty eighteen. It

820
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:18,279
Speaker 4: was produced by Antonia Seerjilo and Cianas Yamoca, edited by

821
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:22,160
Speaker 4: Sophia Palisakar and mixed by Stephanie Lobou. The Latino USA

822
00:48:22,239 --> 00:48:27,840
Speaker 4: team includes Andrea Lopez Crusado, Marta Martinez, Daisy Contreres, Mike Sargent,

823
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 4: Julieta Martinelli, Victoria Estrada, Rinaldo, Leanos, Junior Alejandra Salasar, Patricia

824
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:37,680
Speaker 4: Sulbaran and Julia Rocha with hope from Raul Prees. Our

825
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:41,960
Speaker 4: editorial director is Fernandes Santos. Our senior engineer is Julia Caruso.

826
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:45,040
Speaker 4: Our associate engineers are Gabriel A. Bias and jj Carubin.

827
00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:48,920
Speaker 4: Our marketing manager is Luis Luna. Our New York Women's

828
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:53,360
Speaker 4: Foundation Fellow is Elizabeth Lowenthal Torris. Our theme music was

829
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:56,600
Speaker 4: composed by Zania Rubinos. I'm your host and executive producer

830
00:48:56,640 --> 00:48:58,960
Speaker 4: Maria Jojosa. Join us on our next episode and in

831
00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:01,439
Speaker 4: the meantime look for us as social media at quarter

832
00:49:01,520 --> 00:49:04,960
Speaker 4: that day, Yes, and see you in the next one Choo.

833
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:10,560
Speaker 23: Latino USA is made possible in part by California Endowment,

834
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:14,200
Speaker 23: building a strong state by improving the health of all Californians,

835
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:19,279
Speaker 23: the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the

836
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:23,040
Speaker 23: Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of

837
00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:26,960
Speaker 23: social change worldwide.

838
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:30,960
Speaker 8: Picture Brooklyn in the early nineteen fifties.

839
00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 10: That's basically what she does.