In November 1969, a group calling itself “Indians of All Tribes” took over the island and proclaimed it a cultural and spiritual center in the name of all Native Americans. One of the first was the occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, home to a decommissioned prison where Hopi men and other Native Americans had once been held. ( Native Americans are telling their own stories to counter stereotypes of Indigenous life.) Media savvy and galvanized by the protest movements of the 1960s, they staged high-profile protests to raise awareness of Native issues. In response, a growing movement of young Native Americans sought to reclaim their sovereignty through what they called the Red Power movement. policies, claiming it as a cultural and spiritual center. In 1969, dozens of Native activists took over the former federal prison site in protest of U.S.

government or mainstream American society of the broken treaties, and misguided attempts at assimilation had led to the loss of Indigenous languages and the suppression of many Native religious and cultural practices.Ī Native American girl paints a sign that reads 'Indian American Land' on a wall of Alcataz Island in San Francisco Bay. Riven by social disparities, Native people faced poverty, crime, and despair. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, the federal agency that had imposed laws on Native Americans without their input or approval since 1824, became a symbol of hatred and oppression. government-which had once recognized Native American tribes as nations-began to dismantle Native sovereignty under a policy of “termination.” Under the pretense of helping Native people assimilate into mainstream American society, the federal government terminated the tribal status of more than 100 tribes and bands, removed more than a million acres of land from its protection, and attempted to relocate Native Americans from reservations to urban areas. ( How Indian Territory almost became its own U.S. went back on its promises and pushed Native tribes onto ever-smaller reservations. But as white settlers expanded westward, the U.S. government with the promise that they would have sovereign rule over the new territories where they settled. In these treaties-many brokered under duress-Indigenous people ceded their ancestral lands to the U.S. government signed more than 350 treaties with Native American nations. Throughout the country’s first hundred years, the U.S. Through the Red Power movement, Indigenous activists challenged those practices-and cultivated a sense of pride in their communities-as they demanded sovereignty and self-determination. Native Americans had borne the brunt of discriminatory policies, discarded treaties, and systemic injustice ever since the United States was founded in the late 18th century. And among those activists were members of one of the United States’ most marginalized groups: Native Americans. From the civil rights movement to women’s liberation to protests against the Vietnam War, the 1960s and 1970s were an era of consciousness-raising and protest.

Aim definition civil rights