In November 1969, a small group of Native American
students and “urban Indians” landed on Alcatraz Island in San
Francisco Bay and occupied the former prison for more than 19
months. The “invasion” was a protest of the U.S. government’s
Indian policies and programs, and some say it kicked off the fiery
“Red Power” movement of the 1970s. This November, the award-winning
documentary Alcatraz is not an Island, which looks at the
occupation and the lives of the people behind it, premiers
nationwide on PBS.
The one-hour film, narrated
by actor Benjamin Bratt, was an official selection at the 2001
Sundance Film Festival and won the Best Documentary Feature award
at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco. The
broadcast is scheduled for Nov. 7; check your local PBS station for
times or visit www.pbs.org/alcatraz for more
information.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Revisiting Alcatraz.
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