That camera?
That camera.
Hello. I’m Daryl Johnson, and today,
we will be talking about the oc...
Mm-mm.
Hello. I’m Daryl Johnson, and today,
we will be talking about the occupation of Alcatraz.
Cheers, my friend.
So there was a big fire that happened in 1969,
and it burned down the American Indian Center in San Francisco.
So there was a group of people called the Indians of All Tribes.
And they were like,
“Man, we gotta find a new place to gather.
We gotta be somewhere where we can be ourselves.”
So there was these three leaders,
OK?
Richard Oakes, LaNada Means and Adam Fortunate Eagle.
And they were like, “Wait, is this real?
According to the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868,
it says that Native Americans are allowed to confiscate
abandoned federal land for their own use.
Now, the famed Alcatraz Prison’s been sitting there empty
for six years as federal surplus land, so booyow!
We got our new location: the Rock.”
And they were like, “Well, let’s just take this bitch.”
So, on November 20th, 1969, the coalition of, like, 89 members
of the Indians of All Tribes cruise
across the San Francisco Bay.
And some fat cat land tycoon was over there like,
“Hey, man. I got these plans to develop this land
into a Monte Carlo-themed casino.”
And then, boom, Native American people get there.
They’re like, “Man, get the f**k out of here
with these dumb-ass plans.
It’s ours, baby! You stole it from us once,
but we’re going to steal it from your ass now.”
And they started spray-painting stuff on the walls like,
“Welcome to Indian land,” and, like,
“Red power.”
I like that one.
Adam Fortunate Eagle was still on the mainland
because he was the spokesperson for the tribe.
He was like, “Look, y’all. We takin’ this shit over. OK?
Y’all ain’t using it, and we need it.
All of this belong to us anyway, OK?”
He said, “Look. We’re not just going to take it outright.
We’re not terrible people.
We’ll give your $24 in glass beads
and some red claws. How about that?”
And you know why they gave them $24 of glass beads?
Because that’s how much the Dutch merchants
paid the Native Americans for Manhattan.
Now, I’m someone who loves a person who keeps their petty game up,
but that petty level is on 1,000.
And all this information gets out.
More and more people show up on the island.
And by Thanksgiving Day in 1969,
400 people are now occupying Alcatraz.
How ironic is that? Thanksgiving!
So, of the 50 people there representing
Alcatraz, 40 of them were women.
LaNada Means was like, “You know why?
Because they got a voice, and we recognize that shit.
Look. We got a clinic running. We got a kitchen.
We got John Trudell, the voice of Radio Free Alcatraz.”
And he’d be like, “If you a Native American,
you can come up here and be free and be yourself
and celebrate your own culture and your pride.”
And she was like, “We have set up a school.
These kids are not learning from these white man’s history books.
They’re learning about their history.
We did that. OK?”
And they puttin’ middle fingers all up in the government.
Rich Nixon like, “Ooh, is that a finger in my face?
All I see is middle fingers up in this bitch. What’s going on?”
Now, the white man don’t like losing something
that they stole anyway.
Richard Nixon was like,
“We can’t attack these Native American peoples.
We’ve got so much going on with this country.
We have the Civil War... No, not the Civil War.
Civil rights protest. We can’t have another situation!”
That’s just Tricky Dick trying to save himself.
You know, he was already involved in a scandal,
and stuff was about to go down with him
that he didn’t even know about yet.
But I do, because this is “Drunk History,” and all that’s history,
and I knew it before he knew it, you know what I’m sayin’?
That’s the alcohol talking.
And so, the Coast Guard’s like, “Yo. OK.
Richard Nixon said we can’t go in there and show no force?
Great. Alright. This is what we gonna do.
We gonna take all their fresh water.
We gonna take their electricity. They can’t...”
Let me say that right.
They going to take their electricity.
And they set a fire.
I mean, they don’t know who set the fire,
but if I had to put my bets on it,
I’d say the government set the fire.
OK?
So in July of 1971, the Coast Guard laid siege to Alcatraz.
They was like, “OK, Native American peoples,
or whatever you call yourself.
This long belands...
This land belongs to us, the white man.”
And the shit was over.
After the almost two-year occupation of Alcatraz,
the fat cat was like, “Hey, man. Look.
I don’t think I want to build here no more.”
So the government turned it into a National Park.
And you can go there today
and still see some of the graffiti on the walls.
The Native Americans still come back twice a year
to celebrate the occupation
on what they now call Un-Thanksgiving’s Day,
and that Christopher Motherf**king Columbus Day
that we now call Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day, y’all!
Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
They was like, “We took this shit, y’all,
for almost two years. What did you do today?”
“Checked your mail. Ate some Jell-O.”
Bastard.
How’d you know? [Laughs]