“Alcatraz is not an island, it's an idea,” proclaimed Richard Oakes, a Mohawk ironworker, student, and co-leader of the 1969 Occupation of Alcatraz. In New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty greets visitors; at the Golden Gate, they would encounter a former federal prison reclaimed as a symbol of Native treaty rights and freedom. Fifty years later, Dr. LaNada War Jack a Shoshone-Bannock tribal member and co-leader of the Occupation, and Julian Brave NoiseCat of Oakland and the Canin Lake Band Tsq’escen, who is a co-founder of the
Alcatraz Canoe Journey, gather the voices of Indigenous writers, artists, activists, and scholars to explore the ongoing legacy of this galvanizing idea.
Alcatraz Is Not an Island is published in conjunction with
Alcatraz: An Unfinished Occupation, a four-part speaker series organized by the Alcatraz Canoe Journey in partnership with a host of local non-profit and state organizations.
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great