We turn our thoughts to March 23, 1975, when Bill and BGP, with just a month’s notice, organized an all-star “benefit extravaganza” to raise funds needed by San Francisco public schools faced with fiscal cutbacks, in order to continue after-school sports and other extra-curricular activities. Entitled S.N.A.C.K. Sunday (“Students Need Activities, Culture and Kicks”), the event was held at the 60,000-seat Kezar Stadium, with tickets priced at $5.
The day featured appearances by Marlon Brando and Willie Mays, among other celebrities; a one-time-only collaboration of Bob Dylan, The Band and Neil Young; and performances by Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Jerry Garcia and Friends, Joan Baez, The Doobie Brothers, and others. The event raised more than $200,000, enough to fund San Francisco after-school programs for an entire year.
Jo-Ann and I Went to SNACK...
The Occupation of Alcatraz
In 1963, Belva Cottier, a Rosebud Sioux social worker living in the San Francisco Bay Area, read an article that the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary was to be closed and the property given to the City of San Francisco. Remembering the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, she and her cousin, Richard McKenzie, located a copy of the treaty and proposed that if the property was surplus land of the government, the Sioux could claim it. She planned and organized an occupation and a court action to obtain title to the island.
On March 8, 1964, a small group of Sioux demonstrated by occupying the island for four hours. The entire party consisted of about 40 people, including photographers, reporters and Elliot Leighton, the lawyer representing those claiming land stakes. According to Adam Fortunate Eagle, this demonstration was an extension of already prevalent Bay Area street theater used to raise awareness. The Sioux activists were led by Richard McKenzie, Mark Martinez, Garfield Spotted Elk, Virgil Standing-Elk, Walter Means, and Allen Cottier.
Cottier acted as spokesman for the demonstration, stating that it was "peaceful and in accordance with Sioux treaty rights". The protesters were publicly offering the federal government the same amount for the land that the government had initially offered them; at 47 cents per acre, this amounted to $9.40 for the entire rocky island, equivalent to $88.69 in 2022, or $5.64 for the twelve usable acres. Cottier also stated that the federal government would be allowed to maintain use of the Coast Guard lighthouse located on the island. The protesters left under threat that they would be charged with felony. This incident resulted in increased media attention for indigenous peoples' protests across the Bay Area.
The United Council of the Bay Area Indian community initially considered writing a proposal and filing an application for the use of Alcatraz by Sioux people under the conditions of their treaty. Plans were drawn up for using the buildings on Alcatraz as a cultural center. Conversations about handing Alcatraz over to developers for commercial development created concern about the future availability of the island. A desire for more immediate action to claim space for the local Indian community was finally spurred by the loss of the San Francisco Indian Center to fire on October 10, 1969.
The loss of the San Francisco Indian Center spurred action among indigenous peoples because of the importance it held within their community. The center provided Native Americans with jobs, health care, aid in legal affairs, and social opportunities. This detrimental loss happening on top of the Native’s already growing tension with the U.S. government prompted strategies for obtaining Alcatraz for use by the local Native community shifted from formal applications to more immediate takeover.
In 1969, Adam Nordwall planned a symbolic boat ride for November 9, during the daylight hours, to ride around Alcatraz to gain the attention of local news outlets. University student leaders Mohawk Richard Oakes and Shoshone-Bannock LaNada Means, head of the Native American Student Organization at the University of California, Berkeley, with a larger group of student activists joined Nordwall. A group of five boats were organized to take approximately 75 indigenous peoples over to the island, but none of the boats showed up. Adam Fortunate Eagle convinced Ronald Craig, the owner of the Monte Cristo, a three-masted yacht, to pass by the island when their own boats did not arrive. Oakes, Jim Vaughn, Joe Bill, Ross Harden and Jerry Hatch jumped overboard, attempting to swim to shore, and claim the island by right of discovery.
The Coast Guard quickly grabbed the men from the water, ending their attempts. LaNada Means dissatisfied with the outcome of the day, hired a fishing boat paid by Earl Livermore, and made their way to the island again, and fourteen stayed overnight. The plan for that nights takeover was to split into groups that way if the coast guard found one group there would still be others there to continue the righteous fight. The following day, November 10, Oakes surprised the student occupiers, by delivering a proclamation, written by Fortunate Eagle, to the General Services Administration which claimed the island by right of discovery, after which the groups were removed. The Native American students felt betrayed by Oakes who gave them up to the Coast Guard. Having no knowledge of a proclamation that gave up the Native American student occupier groups in trade for a proclamation to no effect. There were more students on the mainland who were going to join the 14 occupiers and bring out food and supplies on the 10th.
At the height of the occupation there were 400 people on the island. Native women, like Aranaydo, Woesha Cloud North, and Vicky Santana ran the school with the help of Douglas Remington, and teacher's aids Justine Moppin and Rosalie Willie. There was also a daycare and Stella Leach set up the health clinic. Jennie R. Joe and Dorothy Lonewolf Miller assisted Leach as nurses, and Robert Brennan, Richard Fine, and Leach's boss, David Tepper, volunteered as doctors.
Native and non-native people brought food and other necessary items to the people on the island, but the coast guard's blockades made it increasingly difficult to supply the occupants with food. The suppliers, after stealthily journeying across the bay via canoe, dropped off the supplies which then had to be carried up steep ladders. Aranaydo and Luwana Quitiquit were responsible for running the kitchen and cooking for the occupants. The occupation lasted about 19 months but ended peacefully. An employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Doris Purdy, who was also an amateur photographer, accompanied a group who went on November 29, stayed the night and recorded video footage.
The protesters, predominantly students, drew inspiration and tactics from contemporary civil rights demonstrations, some of which they had themselves organized. Jerry Hatch and Al Miller, both present at the initial landing but unable to leave the boat in the confusion after the Coast Guard showed up, quickly turned up in a private boat. The first landing party was joined later by many others in the following days, including Joe Morris, and the man who would soon become "the Voice of Alcatraz", John Trudell.
In December, one of the occupiers, Isani Sioux John Trudell, began making daily radio broadcasts from the island, and in January 1970, occupiers began publishing a newsletter. Joseph Morris, a Blackfoot member of the local longshoreman's union, rented space on Pier 40 to facilitate the transportation of supplies and people to the island. Cleo Waterman was president of the American Indian Center during the takeover. As an elder, she chose to stay behind and work on logistics to support the occupiers. She worked closely with Grace Thorpe and the singer Kay Starr to bring attention to the occupation and its purpose.
On January 3, 1970, Yvonne Oakes, 13-year-old daughter of Annie and stepdaughter to Richard Oakes, fell to her death, prompting the Oakes family to leave the island, saying they did not have the heart for it anymore. Some of the original occupiers left to return to school and some of the new occupiers had drug addictions. Some non-indigenous members of San Francisco's drug and hippie scene also moved to the island, until non-natives were prohibited from staying overnight.
By late May, the government had cut off all electrical power and all telephone service to the island. In June, a fire of disputed origin destroyed numerous buildings on the island. Left without power, fresh water, and in the face of diminishing public support and sympathy, the number of occupiers began to dwindle. On June 11, 1971, a large force of government officers removed the remaining 15 people from the island. Though fraught with controversy and forcibly ended, the occupation is hailed by many as a success for having attained international attention for the situation of native peoples in the United States, and for sparking more than 200 instances of civil disobedience among Native Americans.
The Occupation of Alcatraz had a direct effect on federal Native policy and, with its visible results, established a precedent for Native activism. Spurred in part by Spiro Agnew's support for Native American rights, federal policy began to progress away from termination and toward Native autonomy. In Nixon's July 8, 1970 message, he decried termination, proclaiming, "self-determination among Indian people can and must be encouraged without the threat of eventual termination." Nixon's attitude toward Indian affairs soured with the November 2, 1972, occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Much of the Indian rights activism of the period can be traced to the Occupation of Alcatraz. The Trail of Broken Treaties, the BIA occupation, the Wounded Knee incident, and the Longest Walk all have their roots in the occupation. The American Indian Movement noted from their visit to the occupation that the demonstration garnered national attention, while those involved faced no punitive action.
-The Occupation of Alcatraz Island: Roots of American Indian Activism