The Occupation of Alcatraz Lesson Plan
Hello fellow detail-oriented educator! I’m going to be blogging my way through the 26 lessons in our new Power of the People American history curriculum, which highlights some of the many moments and movements in history when people have worked together for positive change. Maybe you bought the curriculum and you’re looking for additional support in teaching this lesson. Maybe you don’t have dollars to spend on lesson plans right now but you’d still like to teach this history and you’re scouring the web for ideas. Or maybe you’re here because you googled “fish amusement park.” No matter how you got here, I’m glad you did! This lesson was designed to go with ‘A is for Alcatraz,’ the first chapter in the textbook, Rad American History A-Z by Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl. It’s well-written and engaging and includes details the author learned from interviews with people who were part of the occupation. I highly recommend that you incorporate this chapter into your lesson plan.
The 1969 occupation of Alcatraz, what was at that point an abandoned federal prison, is one of the greatest acts of political resistance in Indigenous American history. Led mostly by Indigenous college students, the occupiers claimed that the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie gave them the right to reclaim unused federal land. Under this treaty, they aimed to transform the island and prison into a state-of-the-art Native cultural and education center. The occupation lasted 19 months and had overwhelming public support. While the government refused to return the island to the Indigenous occupiers, the occupation was a huge moment in the Red Power movement, led to landmark legislation (like the ICWA that was just upheld by the Supreme Court), and helped inspire Native sovereignty movements around the world.
Terminology
I want to take a minute to talk about terminology. On Facebook (boo hiss) the other day, I saw a post in which homeschooling parents rejected a curriculum because it referred to Native Americans as “American Indians” or simply as “Indians.” I am so grateful to be part of a community that thinks critically and carefully about the terminology they use with their students. But when it comes to the correct terminology for Indigenous Americans, there is a lot of conflicting information online. For example, in our lesson we include the following note from The National Museum of the American Indian’s FAQ on terminology:
“What is the correct terminology: American Indian, Indian, Native American, Indigenous, or Native?
All of these terms are acceptable. The consensus, however, is that whenever possible, Native people prefer to be called by their specific tribal name. In the United States, Native American has been widely used but is falling out of favor with some groups, and the terms American Indian or Indigenous American are preferred by many Native people. Native peoples often have individual preferences on how they would like to be addressed. When talking about Native groups or people, use the terminology the members of the community use to describe themselves collectively.”
-Native Knowledge 360°
Using this as a guide, it feels appropriate and respectful to refer to the occupiers by the name they gave themselves, which was the Indians of All Tribes (IAT). You can see their use of the name “Indian” in the photo at the top of this blog post and you’ll hear it used by the occupiers in videos we link to in our lessons. Many modern-day tribal nations use the word Indian to refer to their populations as well. So, according to my research, there are times when it is appropriate to use the word Indian, including in reference to the Indians of All Tribes who occupied Alcatraz. What is incorrect is calling every Indigenous person or group “Indian.” If you are referring broadly to many native populations, use the word Indigenous. If you are referring to a specific person, like Dr. LaNada War Jack, use their specific tribal nation (Shoshone Bannock in Dr. War Jack’s case). If you are referring to a group or tribal nation, use the name they have designated. I don’t know anything about the curriculum that was being rejected on Facebook for its use of the term Indian- maybe it is outdated garbage. But I do think there are instances when “American Indian” or “Indian” is the appropriate term.
Illuminative, a fantastic group that I heartily recommend that you follow if you aren’t already, recently shared a video about this on their social media channels. In it, actor Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs talks about the importance of respecting individual preferences and teaches that there are some people who have reclaimed the term “Indian” for themselves, but that it would be inappropriate for non-native people to refer to them by that term, and defaulting to “Indigenous” when you don’t know the correct term would be the most respectful option. Illuminative also offers a Native Dos and Don’ts list that offers helpful information. They have tons of other great learning resources on their website as well.
To sum up, these two sources both advocate getting specific with your wording with an exact Native nation or Tribal affiliation when possible, and both recommend “Indigenous” as one of the most widely-accepted terms to use when speaking generally. You might want to consider discussing these points with your students.
Activity Ideas
Reimaging the Island
Our lessons always pair a high-quality read-aloud with creative activities that students can work on while they’re listening to the story. When we were first starting our virtual history classes, we had kids listen to the reading and then do the creative activity, but over time we found kids were more engaged in the subject matter when we gave them something to do while we read. This will vary based on individual learning styles, but the majority of kids we’ve worked with like to have something to work on while they listen. (I can’t help but plug our Temple Grandin lesson here, which includes a simplified quiz for students to identify their own learning style.) Anyway! When we thought about what we wanted our students to work on for this lesson, we wanted an activity that would allow them to reimagine Alcatraz Island and its abandoned prisons in the same way the Indians of All Tribes had in 1969. These activists, mostly college students, wanted to repurpose the abandoned buildings as a state of the art Indigenous cultural center, including a school and a restaurant that served traditional Native foods. Dr. LaNada War Jack, who we spotlight in our lesson with a biography and coloring page, even went so far as to work with a local architect to design a 3D model of the proposed cultural center. This reimagining was the inspiration for our lesson activities. We took photos of Alcatraz- views of the island from the top and from the side, a cell block, and a single cell- and traced them in Procreate in a light grey color. Then we invited students to draw over these images to transform the abandoned island into something better. For students who prefer digital art, we provided some photos of Alcatraz that they could draw over in a digital art app. Before they got started, we gave them an example of what this might look like:
This is my crudely drawn fish amusement park. Truth be told, it’s a pretty terrible idea- particularly the waterslides that drop you into the notoriously cold and treacherous waters of the San Francisco Bay. But we’re not here to put forward realistic blueprints, we’re here to practice thinking creatively. To look at what is and imagine it as something new. You could take this activity one step further, like Dr. LaNada War Jack did, and create an actual 3D model of your proposed island redesign.
Students who would rather write than draw can redesign one of the signs that were posted around Alcatraz, just as the Indians of All Tribes did (see the photo at the top of this post):
The goal of this lesson, and all the lessons in this curriculum, is twofold. We want students to learn about these huge moments in American history- to see the power of people working together. But we also want them to learn the creative and brilliant techniques that activists have used throughout the years and apply those techniques to the world we live in now. We want them to see themselves as changemakers. Giving students an open-ended design project like this one gives them the opportunity to share their own unique ideas about ways to make the world better.
Radio Free Alcatraz Activity
This is not one of the activities that is included in our lesson plan, but if you bought the lesson and you’re looking to go deeper, or if you’re here looking for ideas for ways to teach about this movement, you’ll find plenty of inspiration in the story of Radio Free Alcatraz! John Trudell, one of the occupiers, ran a radio broadcast that aimed to educate the public about Indigenous life and culture and how the US government has repeatedly violated the rights of Native Americans. (You can read a little more about it over at the Zinn Ed Project.) Broadcasts included interviews and the music of Buffy Sainte-Marie (her book and gorgeous song Still This Love Goes On is featured in our free Indigenous People’s Day lesson). If you have the time, consider the following activity:
Listen to this well-made 19 minute podcast about the sounds and music of the Alcatraz Occupation by Berkeley Voices (the transcript is also available at that link). It is appropriate for all ages.
Invite students to record their own news radio show. The focus of this could be hyper-local (the news of their home or classroom, with interviews from people in these groups) or world- or nation-wide, with news stories culled from a kid-friendly current events podcast, like The Ten News, or magazine, like The Week Junior. Students can select a few stories they want to highlight, draw up an outline, and then take turns recording their segments. They could find a way to work in a musical interlude, like John Trudell did in Radio Free Alcatraz with a song they sing or perform themselves or by sharing a recording of a current favorite or seasonally-appropriate song. An easy way to make and share recordings is through the Voice Memos app on a phone or iPad. Once you make an initial recording, you can click on it and press the “…” button and select “Edit Recording.” Move the cursor to the end of your first recording and then press the “Resume” button to record your next segment. Repeat as necessary.
When the recording is complete, share it with friends and family! The “…” button mentioned above will also allow you to share your finished recording.
Treaty of Fort Laramie Critical Analysis Activity
This is an advanced activity idea, likely better suited to high school-aged learners. The Alcatraz occupiers cited the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868 as the justification for their occupation, claiming that it ceded all unused federal lands back to Native control. This treaty was an agreement between the US government and several Indigenous nations that designated the Black Hills (including the area that is now called Mount Rushmore) and other land in South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, and maybe Montana as “unceded Indian territory.” As your students might already know, or guess, based on the four white men carved into the mountain, the US government broke this treaty following the discovery of gold in the Black Hills. In the 1980 case, United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, the Supreme Court ruled against the US and ordered that the Sioux Nation be paid for the land with interest- a payment they refused because they continue to insist instead on the return of the stolen land. The US government has, so far, been unwilling to return the land. Read more about the broken treaty in this Smithsonian article.
Okay, so that’s a quick summary of the Treaty of Fort Laramie. This story is essential learning for all Americans, but it’s also relevant to our Alcatraz occupation study because of the claim that the treaty includes a provision that unused federal land would be returned to Indigenous hands. I read through a number of resources, and then the treaty itself, in search of what specific article included this provision, and I couldn’t find it. This search led me to the idea for this critical analysis activity:
Provide your students with the original and transcript versions of the Treaty of Fort Laramie.
Our textbook and many other reference works about the occupation mention the provision in the Treaty of Fort Laramie. If you don’t have access to the textbook, this New York Times article explains the justification by saying,
“Previous attempts to occupy the island had been made by Native American activists, who cited provisions in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which said that unused federal lands could be open to claims by certain Native Americans. Alcatraz had been categorized as surplus land by the United States government, sitting unused since the prison there was closed in 1963. After the San Francisco American Indian Center had burned down, and the community needed a new place to gather, Oakes and Nordwall put forward the idea of another occupation. The Rock, they thought, would make a perfect replacement for the destroyed Indian center.” -David Treuer
Discuss this claim with your students and invite them to read through the Treaty of Fort Laramie in search of this/these provision(s). They can also use the internet and reference books to research the answer to this question.Discuss your findings. Did you find provisions that cede unused government land back to Indigenous control? If you didn’t, do you think it’s in the treaty and you just didn’t find it? Do you think a justification for the occupation is even necessary?
I’ll close by linking to just one more resource, this excellent article about the occupation of Alcatraz by the Lakota People’s Law Project, another must-follow on social media. Thank you for teaching this essential history to your students. Thank you for doing this work! If you’re interested in checking out the lesson we designed to teach this history, here it is:
