- Details
- By Nanette Deetz
SAN FRANCISCO — About 5,500 people were ferried from Pier 33 to Alcatraz Island before dawn Thursday for the annual Indigenous Peoples Thanksgiving Sunrise Gathering and commemorates the 1969–71 occupation of Alcatraz by Native activists.
This year’s gathering included a recorded message from Leonard Peltier, the Turtle Mountain Ojibwe activist who spent nearly five decades in federal prison for the 1975 killing of two FBI agents — a crime legal experts say he did not commit. Peltier, now confined to his home on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota after a presidential commutation by President Joe Biden, requested permission to travel to San Francisco but was denied by federal authorities.
“I was planning on being there with you all today on the island, but those in power denied my journey,” Peltier said in the message broadcast over the island’s public address system. “I want to say hello to all of you. I will be saying prayers with you over here.”
Peltier thanked supporters for their decades of advocacy. “My heart is full because you've done so much. Now we must come together like never before because they continue to kill us,” he said. He urged the next generation to carry on cultural traditions and political struggles. “I am very, very proud of you. Now we have our own economies, languages, schools, big powwows, even our land back in some areas. I feel so happy. I would stand up and do it all again.”
He also referenced the ongoing war in Gaza. “We see what is happening in Palestine, killing women, children and unborn babies. This is exactly what was done to us. We will stand with them. Now unity among all our Indigenous nations is the most important.”
Attendees were invited to write messages to Peltier and to people in Palestine on an anti-colonial banner displayed on the island.
The program opened with a welcome from International Indian Treaty Council Executive Director Andrea Carmen (Yaqui Nation). Morning Star Gali (Ajumawi Band of the Pit River Tribe) served as the master of ceremonies. A welcoming prayer was offered by Greg Castro (Ohlone) and Radley Davis (Pit River).
The Hupa Flower Singers, led by Viola Chummy, performed songs honoring the transition into womanhood. “We are still doing these songs and ceremonies in our villages,” Chummy said. “We know we need and honor the balance between men and women, but we also know that the women hold culture, organize and keep things going.”
Miwok singers Albert Tittman and Albert Tittman Jr. also performed. “It is time for all of us to come together and unify like never before,” the elder Tittman said. “Wherever we are on this Earth, we are Indigenous. Indigenous blood is deep — this is a day to honor our pre-colonization past.”
The Round Valley Reservation Yuki Resistance group offered songs and dances, saying they plan to set up barricades to protect redwood trees from destruction. “We need to stay as warriors,” one member said. “We need to show our young people how we remain warriors in song, dances and prayers.”
About 35 members of the Apache Stronghold, who are fighting to protect the sacred site of Oak Flat from a proposed copper mine, performed songs and prayers. Wensler Nosie Sr. and young women who recently completed their coming-of-age ceremonies at Oak Flat addressed the crowd.
“We’ve been running, and we’ve been fighting to save our sacred site at Oak Flat,” Nosie said. “If we lose it, others will be denied holding sacred ceremonies there. … Today we fight for Mother Earth. Thank you for all your support. We must stand up for all life.”
The ceremony concluded with All Nations Drum and powwow dancers honoring Alcatraz veterans, followed by Aztec dancers. All attendees received breakfast burritos prepared by Indigenous chef Crystal Wahpepah (Kickapoo) of Wahpepah’s Kitchen in Oakland.
Echoes of the late John Trudell — poet, musician, activist and original Alcatraz occupier — were present throughout the morning. “The Great Lie is that this is civilization,” Trudell once said. “It is not civilized... Or if it does represent civilization, and that is truly what civilization is, then the Great Lie is that civilization is good for us.”
Fifty years after the first sunrise gathering, speakers said the struggle against colonization, capitalism and the erosion of Indigenous rights continues on what they described as an increasingly fragile Earth.
Nanette Deetz is a Lakota, Dakota, Cherokee writer, poet whose articles have appeared in Native News Online, Tribal Business Journal, Indian Country Today, Bon Apetit Magazine, Alameda Journal, Mercury News, East Bay Times, and her poetry in numerous anthologies. In 2019 she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the city of Berkeley at the annual Berkeley Poetry Festival for her poetry and activism. She can be reached at [email protected]
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