Thousands mark Indigenous Peoples' Day sunrise gathering on Alcatraz

Thousands of people gathered on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay for the Indigenous Peoples' Day Sunrise Gathering on October 12. The organizers counted about 3,300 people, with more than 300 tribes represented, Indigenous Justice told IND; CalMatters and ICT reported more than 2,000, and Buffalo's Fire estimated nearly 3,000.

The 47th annual gathering was hosted by the International Indian Treaty Council and co-hosted by Indigenous Justice. It began before dawn in Yelamu (San Francisco), the ancestral lands of the Ohlone, and KPFA radio broadcast it live.

Richard Moves Camp, an Oglala Lakota man who travelled from South Dakota, spoke at the beginning of the sunrise prayer, honouring the 1969–71 occupiers and the 19 Hopi men imprisoned on the island in 1895, Buffalo's Fire reported. Aztec dancers performed around a bonfire, CalMatters and ICT reported.

Among the speakers was Matonth Brown, described by CalMatters and ICT as Elem Pomo and San Carlos Apache, whose ancestors include some of those Hopi men.

Morning Star Gali, a member of the Pit River Nation and executive director of Indigenous Justice, spoke about protecting sacred sites. "Our resilience in our continued fight for our religious freedom connects us to being here today," she told CalMatters and ICT. "Now more than ever, as the federal administration rolls back Indigenous Peoples' Day, the opportunity to gather together in prayer and community is crucial," Gali said in a statement to IND.

Speakers also included Andrea Carmen of the International Indian Treaty Council and Gregg Castro, who gave the Ohlone welcome, and the morning carried singers and dancers from many Nations, including the Payóomkawichum bird singers from Pechanga, the Round Valley Dancers and All Nations powwow dancers, the organizers said.

Organizers also criticized California Governor Gavin Newsom's vetoes of measures on tribal sacred-site and water protections, CalMatters and ICT reported.

The gathering honours the 1969–71 occupation of Alcatraz by Indians of All Tribes. On November 20, 1969, about 100 Indigenous people, many of them students, landed on the former federal prison island and held it for 19 months, seeking title to the island and an Indigenous university, cultural centre and museum, according to the National Park Service. Richard Oakes, who was Akwesasne Mohawk, was its most prominent leader. Armed federal officers removed the last 15 occupiers on June 10, 1971. The Park Service says the occupation, directly or indirectly, helped end the federal policy of termination and make self-determination official U.S. policy, and that it "gave birth to a political movement which continues to today." The island's Indigenous history reaches back further: in January 1895 the government imprisoned 19 Hopi men from Orayvi on Alcatraz because they refused to send their children to government boarding schools, the Park Service says.