Of All Tribes: American Indians and Alcatraz

In Of All Tribes, Abenaki children’s book icon Joseph Bruchac tells the stirring history of the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz by Native Americans, which established a precedent for Indian activism.

“Alcatraz is not an island. It’s an idea.” —activist Richard Oakes (Akwesasne Mohawk)

On the night of November 20, 1969—the end of one of the most tumultuous decades in American history—eighty-nine young Native American activists crossed the San Francisco Bay under cover of darkness, calling them...