1. Becoming a focal point of the American Indian Movement, Alcatraz Island was occupied by Native American activists multiple times after the prison’s closure to protest against indigenous treatment at the hands of the United States
Occupied for the first time on March 8, 1964, Alcatraz Island quickly became the center of the Indian Rights Movement in the late-1960s and early-1970s. Demanding the end of and reparations for the Indian termination policy – a series of laws during the 1940s and lasting through the 1960s seeking to compel indigenous persons to abandon their traditional heritage and become “more civilized” – these programs included the forced relocation of native communities from reservations into American cities. In response, many of those forcibly consigned to San Francisco took up residence on Alcatraz Island in protest of the U.S. Government’s actions.
Claiming the island by “right of discovery”, as well as under the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) which required all out-of-use federal lands to be returned to indigenous peoples, on November 20, 1969, the United Indians of All Tribes initiated a prolonged occupation. Attracting national attention, the small community of Indians maintained their vigil until June 11, 1971, when President Richard Nixon formally rescinded the Indian termination policy and established a new policy of tribal self-determination. Graffiti dating from the nineteen-month occupation imparting messages proclaiming native rights can still be seen on parts of the island.