kent blansett journey to freedom

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• The Henry Roe Cloud Series on American Indians and Modernity
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A Journey to Freedom

Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement

by Kent Blansett

Series: The Henry Roe Cloud Series on American Indians and Modernity

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408 Pages , 6.12 x 9.25 in , 50 b-w illus.

• 9780300255188
• Published: Tuesday, 8 Sep 2020
• 9780300240412
• Published: Tuesday, 25 Sep 2018

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Kent Blansett , a Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Shawnee, and Potawatomi descendant, is associate professor of Indigenous studies and history at the University of Kansas.

“Blansett’s meticulous research pays due respect to Oakes’ massive contribution to the Red Power movement but avoids the hubris of hagiography by understanding Oakes as a flawed individual who could be polarizing and difficult . . . Blansett’s balanced writing combines with copious photos and maps that bring the story to life.”—Dina Gilio-Whitaker, Los Angeles Times “ A Journey to Freedom will engage readers in Native communities and in college and university classrooms, and casual readers will also find themselves avidly turning the page to see what comes next.”—Laurie Arnold, The Sixties " A Journey to Freedom is the nonfiction complement to Tommy Orange’s best-selling novel There There (2018) . . . an exemplary work that recovers an important period in modern California history and casts it in a new, richer light.”—Randall A. Lake, California History “This thorough and balanced account places [Richard Oakes’] life within the broader framework of Indian affairs stretching from WW I through the termination and relocation policies of the 1950s. Likewise, the book corrects many long-held misunderstandings about the birth of the Red Power movement and its sometimes adversarial participants. “— Choice “This scholarly yet reader-friendly text will enlighten readers about an often-overlooked part of a continuing civil rights struggle.”— Publishers Weekly "Published on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1969 takeover of Alcatraz Island, this text is as timely as it is necessary . . . Blansett creates a masterful biography of one of the most important figures of the Red Power movement."—Paul McKenzie Jones, Western Historical Quarterly , Summer 2000 " A Journey to Freedom makes for an engaging read that can appeal to a broad audience . . . This study thus solidly roots [Richard] Oakes in a history of American Indian activism in the modern period . . . which includes contributing to the development of Native American Studies programs, shifting the course of American Indian activism, and influencing federal policy reforms toward self-determination . . . Oakes became a spokesperson, leader, and symbol for Red Power . . . "—Nicholas G. Rosenthal, Reviews in American History , March 2020   “. . . a powerful contribution to our understanding of Native American sovereignty, community, human rights, and identity . . . This book should be required reading for all students of recent Native American history as well as for those seeking to understand the similarities and differences between the social justice movements of the mid-twentieth century and the centuries-long quest for self-determination and human rights of Native Americans.”—Sarah Eppler Janda,  American Historical Review “Writing from the heart, Kent Blansett demonstrates the sui generis leadership of Richard Oakes in the big picture of Native nationalism that rocked federal-Indian relations and captured public attention in the quest for sovereignty.”—Donald L. Fixico, author of Call for Change:  The Medicine Way of American Indian History, Ethos, and Reality "In this exhaustively researched and brilliant work, Kent Blansett centers the story on Mohawk leader Richard Oakes. A Journey to Freedom is a powerfully told and richly documented biography of one of Indian Country’s most important leaders and contributes to our understanding of the Red Power Movement, the occupation of Alcatraz Island, Native American activism in the twentieth century, and the urban Indian experience."—Amy Lonetree, author of Decolonizing Museums: Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums "Kent Blansett’s deeply researched and well-told biography reveals the centrality of tribal nationalism in Intertribal organizing. Richard Oakes’s story frames a major rethinking of the entire history of the Red Power movement. Not to be missed!"—Philip J. Deloria, author of Playing Indian

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K ent B lansett . A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement .

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Sarah Eppler Janda, K ent B lansett . A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement ., The American Historical Review , Volume 125, Issue 4, October 2020, Pages 1453–1454, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhz690

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While there are several books that deal with Red Power and Native American efforts to restore sovereignty, A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement is the first book-length study of Richard Oakes, who was one of the most influential Red Power activists in the 1960s. This book offers far more than a biographical analysis of Oakes. Kent Blansett masterfully delves into the history of Oakes’s Mohawk heritage to explain how his activism emerged in the context of his tribal culture rather than as separate from it. In other words, he argues that Oakes’s philosophy, activism, and outlook on self-determination cannot be understood in a vacuum. Blansett takes great care to link Oakes’s Red Power activism to tribal traditions. He then navigates the complexities of Oakes’s early childhood, family tensions, and his experience as an ironworker. Blansett maintains that Oakes’s experiences as a young man on the Akwesasne Reservation uniquely shaped his attitude toward intertribal alliances because of the complexities on a reservation that spanned two countries: Canada and the United States. Oakes, who is perhaps best known for his role in the Occupation of Alcatraz, emerges in the pages of A Journey to Freedom as a complex and often conflicted leader with a singular focus on trying to help Native Americans reclaim their land, government, and future. He pursued these efforts within the context of intertribalism and, as Blansett shows, Oakes proved to be among the most powerful articulators of intertribal sovereignty. This book adds much to our understanding of intertribalism, urban Indian space, the Occupation of Alcatraz, and Oakes’s involvement in other sovereignty struggles, such as with the Pit River Indians.

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Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement (The Henry Roe Cloud Series on American Indians and Modernity) Kindle Edition

• Part of series The Henry Roe Cloud Series on American Indians and Modernity
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• Publication date September 25, 2018
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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07H3WLN81
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Yale University Press; Illustrated edition (September 25, 2018)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 25, 2018
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 28158 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
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About the author

Kent blansett.

Kent Blansett is a Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Shawnee, and Potawatomi descendant from the Blanket, Panther, and Smith families. He serves as an Assistant Professor of History and Native American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Blansett is the founder of the American Indian Digital History Project which provides a free, open source, searchable, and cooperative archive for rare Indigenous underground newspapers, print media, photos, and other ephemera at www.aidhp.com. He has published numerous book chapters including: "When the Stars Fell from the Sky: The Cherokee Nation and Autonomy during the Civil War" in Virginia Scharff's Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and the West; "San Francisco, Red Power, and the Emergence of an Indian City" in Kathleen Brosnan and Amy Scott's City Dreams, Country Schemes: Community and Identity in the American West. He has also authored a number of articles on BlogWest and his writing has also appeared in Indian Country Today. His first book, eighteen years in the making, is the first biography of the Akwesasne Mohawk student leader Richard Oakes, credited as a leader involved in the 1969 takeover of Alcatraz Island by the organization Indians of All Tribes. Oakes played a pivotal role in Red Power activism from the 1960s to 1970s, sparking liberation movements at Fort Lawton, Pit River, Clear Lake, and Rattlesnake Island. His assassination in 1972 prompted the Trail of Broken Treaties march on Washington and his leadership helped usher in a new era in federal Indian policy known as self-determination.

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Kent Blansett, "A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and Red Power" (Yale UP, 2018)

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Richard Oakes led Native Americans to occupy Alcatraz in 1969 — his tragic story is finally being told

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The 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay is one of the most notable acts of political resistance in American Indian history. In Kent Blansett’s latest book, “A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement,” he captures the action as it happened: “Dressed in blue jeans, a sweater, and a cherished pair of cowboy boots, Richard Oakes made his way to the side of the boat. Looking over at the waves and the island, he turned to the crowd and motioned, ‘Come on. Let’s go. Let’s get it on!’ Within a few seconds, his shirt was off; his large frame disappeared into the chilled November waters, his boots still on as he swam for the land.”

In the turbulent but transformative civil rights era, the Red Power movement was the American Indian version of what became multiple ethnic nationalist movements that sprang up in the 1960s and ’70s. Inspired by the Black Power movement, which fostered ethnic pride and Black social empowerment, the Red Power Movement led to sea changes in federal Indian policy, resulting in the affirmation of sovereignty and self-determination for tribal nations after centuries of physical and cultural genocide at the hands of Euro-Americans.

One of the most important movers and shakers of the Red Power era was Richard Oakes, who led the occupation of Alcatraz Island. Despite the fact that Oakes passed away in 1972, “A Journey to Freedom” is the first ever biography of his life.

Civil disobedience occupations like Alcatraz were a cornerstone of 1960s and ’70s social justice activism, especially in Indian country.

Much has been written about the Red Power movement often revolving around the American Indian Movement and some of its higher profile personalities such as Russell Means, Dennis Banks and others. AIM is often associated with a more militant approach to political activism, such as the 71-day armed siege of Wounded Knee in 1973. But while AIM and Red Power emanated largely from urban (as opposed to reservation) Indian youth, AIM was only one aspect of a larger Red Power movement. Much of the era’s activism, in other words, had nothing to do with AIM. And Oakes was not formally affiliated with AIM either.

Blansett’s biography was 18 years in the making from when he first became interested in Richard Oakes’ life as an undergrad at the University of New Mexico. His meticulous research pays due respect to Oakes’ massive contribution to the Red Power movement but avoids the hubris of hagiography by understanding Oakes as a flawed individual who could be polarizing and difficult.

Although the book is published by a major university press, it is not bogged down by academic jargon and inaccessible prose. Blansett’s balanced writing combines with copious photos and maps that bring the story to life, making this book available to the average reader while it simultaneously fills a void in the Red Power historical literature.

Oakes was most known for leading the occupation of Alcatraz, an action that is often, although somewhat misleadingly, thought of as the genesis of the Red Power movement. Civil disobedience occupations such as that at Alcatraz were a cornerstone of 1960s and ’70s social justice activism, especially in Indian country.

Relocation was sold as a way for Indians to escape federal ‘supervision’ of reservation life where poverty was rampant.

The abandoned prison island of Alcatraz had become a target for occupation based on the belief that the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie allowed for the reclamation of unused land, and a plan was drafted to turn the island into an American Indian cultural center. But by the time Alcatraz happened in 1969, there had already been numerous other direct-action campaigns in various tribal communities, all based on the assertion of treaty rights, self-determination and returning land.

One well-known example is the occupation of Frank’s Landing in Washington State in protest of state fishing laws that violated treaty rights. It had attracted national media attention due to the involvement of celebrities including Marlon Brando and Dick Gregory. But while the “fish-in” began in 1964, it was by no means the first organized protest in Indian country.

In the genealogy of 20th century American Indian activism, Blansett traces the origins of Oakes’s own political engagement to his Mohawk roots in New York, where his home community at Akwesasne on the U.S. side of the international border and Kahnawà:ke Mohawks on the Canadian side had been fighting the building of a massive canal on the St. Lawrence River since the early 1950s, which resulted in the confiscation of much of their land. Oakes was a kid when his family was fighting that battle and was deeply influenced by it.

The urban grounding of the Red Power movement is often framed as “pan-Indianism,” an older term originating in the early 20th century when Native people increasingly integrated into cities. But Blansett argues that the term is wrong because it implies that Native people gave up their tribal identities in favor of a more ambiguous “Indian” or “Native American” identity.

Instead, Blansett contends that Native people brought their tribally based national identities with them, resulting in what can more accurately be understood as intertribalism. Blansett writes: “Intertribalism centers on the power of place and the Native Nationalist definitions of shared culture.”

It was the amalgamation of many different Native “nationalisms” that resulted in what he calls “Indian cities” in places such as San Francisco, Seattle and Brooklyn, where Oakes grew up. The federal relocation policy of the 1950s was designed to empty reservation communities and had resulted in tens of thousands of Native people moving to cities, where they found each other and together built intertribal communities that reinforced their respective tribal identities.

Relocation was sold as a way for Indians to escape federal “supervision” of reservation life where poverty was rampant. Like many Mohawk and Iroquois people, to escape the poverty of reservation life, the Oakes family moved to Brooklyn, where life was a different kind of rough. The parents’ divorce resulted in Oakes and his brother living in an orphanage for a couple of years. As a teenager and young adult, Oakes had altercations with the law.

In New York City, Mohawks were famous for their death-defying construction work on skyscrapers and bridges. The risky ironworking jobs were well-paying, and Oakes followed in his father’s footsteps, dropping out of high school to become an ironworker. Eventually he went back to school, however, and after a short-lived marriage, Oakes found himself needing to rebuild his life.

Oakes left New York in 1968 for San Francisco, where revolution was in the air. He landed in the Indian city of the Mission District where he immediately became involved in political organizing as a student at San Francisco State College.

Owing to Oakes’ leadership, the Alcatraz occupation began in November of the following year. By then he had married a Kashaya Pomo woman named Annie Marrufo who brought several children with her into the marriage. Their 10-year-old daughter Yvonne had died in a mysterious accident just a few weeks into the occupation, and the Oakeses decide to leave the island.

The assassination was perceived by American Indian activists as just one more in a long line of injustices

After Alcatraz, Oakes’ political work kicked into high gear and he organized many other direct-action campaigns in Indian country. Settling in Marrufo’s home community on the Stewart’s Point Rancheria in Sonoma County, he embroiled himself in local Native conflicts with non-Natives, raising the ire of white ranchers.

In September 1972, Oakes was murdered in a confrontation with one of the ranchers in what Blansett characterizes as an assassination, since the murder was a direct result of Oakes’ political activism. After a short jury trial, Richard’s killer was found not guilty of murder.

The assassination was perceived by American Indian activists as just one more in a long line of injustices, sparking outrage and leading to a cross-country caravan to take over the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington, D.C., later that year, known as the Trail of Broken Treaties.

Richard Oakes’ organizing successfully resulted in the return of land for Native people, including the Pit River tribes in Northern California, Fort Lawton in Seattle (which was turned into an urban Indian center), and others. Today’s tribal relationships with the federal government are based on the recognition of mutual sovereignty, stemming in no small part from the activism of the Red Power Movement and Oakes’ leadership. The recognition of his legacy is long overdue.

“ A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement ”

Kent Blansett

Yale University Press, 392 pp.

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Kent Blansett - A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement

Kent Blansett  is a Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Shawnee, and Potawatomi descendant from the Blanket, Panther, and Smith families. He is an Associate Professor of History and Native American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Professor Blansett also serves as the founder and executive director for the American Indian Digital History Project. He has published numerous articles and book chapters including:  When the Stars Fell from the Sky: The Cherokee Nation and Autonomy during the Civil War  and  San Francisco, Red Power, and the Emergence of an Indian City. His latest book, eighteen-years in the making, is the first biography to explore the dynamic life and times of Akwesasne Mohawk student leader Richard Oakes, who was a key figure in the 1969 takeover of Alcatraz Island by the organization Indians of All Tribes. Published by Yale University Press in 2018, Blansett’s book entitled,  A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement  highlights Oakes’s pivotal role in Red Power activism from the 1960s and 1970s that sparked Native liberation movements throughout North America. Blansett’s book has garnered national attention with reviews in the  Los Angeles Times , a feature on NPR’s  Latino USA , and was optioned for a future movie. His scholarship has received numerous fellowships and awards including the prestigious Katrin H. Lamon Fellow with the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is currently working on three future book projects:  Indian Cities: Histories of Indigenous Urbanism ;  Briefcase Warriors: A history of the Native American Rights Fund ; and  Red Power and Popular Culture, 1945-Present .     

Drawing from his recent book  A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement  (Yale University Press, 2018), Professor Blansett will discuss Richard Oakes’s critical role in Red Power activism from the 1960s to the 1970s. This presentation highlights the 50 th  anniversary of the nineteen-month takeover of Alcatraz Island by the organization Indians of All Tribes. Oakes also helped organize the highly publicized Alcatraz, Fort Lawton, and Pit River “takeovers.” His assassination in 1972 inspired the Trail of Broken Treaties march on Washington, D.C., and unified a movement that eventually ushered in the era of self-determination in the mid-1970s.

Professor Blansett’s presentation will explore the life and times of Akwesasne Mohawk activist Richard Oakes and illustrate how his actions reflected a unique voice of Indigenous leadership within the Red Power movement. Richard Oakes’s life also serves as a lens to highlight the development of Indian Cities in Brooklyn, San Francisco, and Seattle while exploring the intersections of Native Nationalism and Red Power in this dynamic era of American history.

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A journey to freedom: the life of richard oakes, 1942-1972.

Kent Blansett

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A Journey to Freedom: The Life of Richard Oakes 1942-1972,' is the story of Indigenous leader and activist Richard Oakes, and focuses on the climax of the national movement toward Native self-determination and freedom. 'A Journey to Freedom' investigates the intersections of place, space, identity, and socio/political coalitions within the Red Power movement. Oakes' leadership was influential in the Alcatraz (1969) and Fort Lawton (1970) takeovers, as well as Pit River's resistance to PG&E Corporation's illegal land use. Each successive takeover pushed for land rights, treaty rights, and the development of ecological centers that forged links between reservation and urban spaces. Oakes' political activism also influenced other organizations such as the Black Panthers, Brown Berets, Atzlan, and the national environmental movement. The assassination of Richard Oakes led to the Trail of Broken Treaties march on Washington D.C. and ultimately resulted in the passage of federal self-determination legislation. I use two theoretical models to construct an 'alternative' twentieth-century history: what I define as 'Intertribalism' and the advent of an 'Indian City. While the term 'Pan-Indian' implies the Ethnic-American destruction of Tribal identity, Intertribalism emphasizes the study of coalitions between Tribes. Native history, within this context, is transnational history. Intertribalism, I argue, emerged as a central force of American Indian Nationalism. Intertribalism is also connected to Indian Cities. Unlike traditional ethnic neighborhoods, these cities were comprised of institutions (Indian Centers, Indian bars, health centers, businesses, churches, and a host of others) that politicized a highly migrant and dispersed urban population. 'A Journey to Freedom' is the first urban comparative study to examine the construct of Indian Cities within New York, San Francisco, and Seattle. Oakes' unique life provides an alternative narrative to previous scholarship that placed the American Indian Movement as the lone icon of Red Power. My dissertation counters this representation by emphasizing the multiple roles of community, ideology, identity, and nationalism. 'A Journey to Freedom,' moves beyond an examination of contemporary Native leadership, and exposes the deep and diverse foundations of the larger Red Power movement that informs contemporary definitions of Native politics and sovereignty.

Level of Degree

Degree name, department name, first committee member (chair).

Connell-Szasz, Margaret

Second Committee Member

Hutton, Paul

Third Committee Member

Cahill, Cathleen

Fourth Committee Member

Farber, David

Document Type

Dissertation

Recommended Citation

Blansett, Kent. "A Journey to Freedom: The Life of Richard Oakes, 1942-1972." (2011). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds/10

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Biography —.

Kent Blansett   is a Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Shawnee, and Potawatomi descendant from the Blanket, Panther, and Smith families. Read more about his family history here: Kent Blansett’s Family History .

Blansett arrived at KU in 2020 as the Langston Hughes Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies and History. Moving to Kansas has brought him closer to home. Blansett grew up in a small, rural town in the Ozarks region of Missouri and attended the University of Missouri for college. There, he joined, served, and became president of From the Four Directions, a Native student organization. He spent the next four years engaged in protests, activism, student programming, and Tribal engagement (including powwows and stomps throughout Kansas City and Columbia). As a college student Blansett also coordinated efforts to repatriate over 3,000 Indigenous ancestors from Mizzou’s Department of Physical Anthropology, volunteered with Cherokee Nation Head Start, tutored Native youth in Kansas City through Visible Horizons, and conducted grant writing for the Santee Nation. He held internships with what was then called the Office of Indian Education Programs through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and worked for the Executive Director of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, an organization that had a profound influence later in his life as a young Indigenous scholar. During these years in the mid-1990s he worked with a great number of Tribal leaders, activists, and repatriation officers, including, but not limited to, Dennis Banks, Michael Haney, and Richard “Dick” Black. As a double major (History and Interdisciplinary Studies/American Indian Studies) he was fortunate to work with three wonderful Native faculty mentors at Mizzou: Dr. Karen Sunday Cockrell, Dr. Linda Sue Warner, and Dr. Lee Francis.

After college Blansett moved to Albuquerque and became the Special Events Coordinator of Native American Studies at the University of New Mexico. There he met William (“Bill”) S. Yellow Robe, Jr., who recruited him to perform and work for Wakiknabe, an Intertribal Native Theater Company. Blansett was active in Wakiknabe throughout his years of graduate studies (part time and then full time) when he pursued an M.A. in History at UNM. Blansett’s passion for activism and Native history eventually led him to research the Red Power Movement and, more specifically, the life of Akwesasne Mohawk activist Richard Oakes. During his doctoral studies, his research interests extended beyond Red Power to include histories of Indigenous migrations and Intertribalism in the South.

• Ph.D. in History, University of New Mexico, May 2011
• M.A. in History, University of New Mexico, May 2004
• B.A. in History, University of Missouri, December 1997
• B.A. in Interdisciplinary/American Indian Studies, University of Missouri, December 1997

Research —

Blansett has published numerous articles and book chapters including "When the Stars Fell from the Sky: The Cherokee Nation and Autonomy during the Civil War," "Intertribalism in the Ozarks, 1800-1865," and "San Francisco, Red Power, and the Emergence of an Indian City."   In 2022 he co-edited a volume titled  Indian Cities: Histories of Indigenous Urbanism. 

His book, 18 years in the making, is the first biography to explore the dynamic life and times of Akwesasne Mohawk student leader Richard Oakes, who was a key figure in the 1969 takeover of Alcatraz Island by the organization Indians of All Tribes. Published by Yale University Press in 2018, A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement  highlights Oakes’s pivotal role in Red Power activism from the 1960s and 1970s that sparked Native liberation movements throughout North America. Blansett’s book has garnered national attention with reviews in the  Los Angeles Times to Indian Country Today . He has published articles in the  Washington Post ,  Al Jazeera , and was featured on National Public Radio’s  Latino USA ,  The Takeaway , &  All Things Considered . Most recently, his book was optioned for a future Hollywood movie.

Blansett also serves as the founder and executive director for the  American Indian Digital History Project . His curated museum exhibit “Not Your Indians Anymore: Alcatraz and the Red Power Movement, 1969-71,” is sponsored by the National Park Service and is viewable on Alcatraz Island. His scholarship has received numerous fellowships and awards including the prestigious Katrin H. Lamon Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Blansett is currently working on two future book projects:  Briefcase Warriors: A History of the Native American Rights Fund ; and  Red Power and Popular Culture, 1945-Present .

Teaching —

Courses taught at KU:

• ISP 800 Indigenous Issues in the United States (focus on Red Power), Fall 2020
• ISP 804 Special Topics in Indigenous Studies: Global Indigenous History, Spring 2021
• HIST 326 Native Americans Confront European Empires, Spring 2021

Courses taught at other institutions:

• American Indian History 1945-Present (Red Power)
• Global Indigenous History
• Native Strategies for Survival, 1860-1934
• Native American Strategies for Survival, 1880-1920
• History of North American Indians
• American Indians and the United States: A History
• American Indian Ethnography and Ethnohistory
• Graduate Seminar, American Indian Historiography
• Introduction to Native American/American Indian Studies
• Native Nationalism and Red Power (digital history course)
• U.S. History Since 1865
• Vietnam War (digital history course)
• Graduate Seminar in History, Biography
• American Experience in World War II (digital history course)

Selected Publications —

Indian Cities: Histories of Indigenous Urbanization (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018) A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement  (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018).

“When the Stars Fell from the Sky: The Cherokee Nation and Autonomy in the Civil War,” in  Empire  and Liberty: The American West and the Civil War , edited by Virginia Scharff, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015).

“San Francisco, Red Power and the Emergence of an “Indian City,”” in  City Dreams and Country Schemes: Community and Identity in the American West , edited by Amy Scott and Kathleen Brosnan, in The Urban West Series edited by David Wrobel (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2011); 261-283.

“Intertribalism in the Ozarks, 1800-1865,”  American Indian Quarterly  34:4 (Fall 2010); 475-497.

“Murder at Navajo Mountain,” in  Roundup!   Western Writers of America Anthology , edited by Paul Andrew Hutton. (Cheyenne, WY: La Frontera Publishing, 2010); 81-92.

Exhibitions —

MUSEUM EXHIBITS Curator, “Not Your Indians Anymore: Alcatraz and the Red Power Movement,” National Park Service, Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, CA, Nov. 2019-June 2021

“Not Your Indians Anymore: Alcatraz and the Red Power Movement,” Skä•noñh Great Law of Peace Center, Syracuse, New York, Oct.-Jan. 2018

“Not Your Indians Anymore: Alcatraz and the Red Power Movement,” Osborne Gallery, University of Nebraska at Omaha, May-Aug. 2018

American Indian Culture and Research Journal

A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement. By Kent Blansett.

• Reinhardt, Akim

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Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, And The Red Power Movement

  On this edition of Your Call, Kent Blansett discusses his new book, A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement .

The Occupation of Alcatraz marked a critical turning point for Native American justice. Richard Oakes, a Mohawk, was one of the young activists who took the island 50 years ago. He wrote, "Alcatraz is not an island. It’s an idea." He was assassinated in 1972.

Kent Blansett , associate professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha and author of  A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement  

• Future Students
• Parents and Families

Center for the Humanities

Think indigenous: richard oakes and the red power movement.

Kent Blansett, University of Kansas

Drawing from his recent book, A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement (Yale University Press, 2018), Professor Blansett will discuss Richard Oakes’s critical role in Red Power activism from the 1960s to the 1970s. He will highlight the 50th anniversary of the nineteen-month takeover of Alcatraz Island by the organization Indians of All Tribes. Oakes also helped organize the highly publicized Alcatraz, Fort Lawton, and Pit River takeovers. His assassination in 1972 inspired the Trail of Broken Treaties march on Washington, D.C. and unified a movement that eventually ushered in the era of self-determination in the mid-1970s.

Blansett will explore this movement through the lens of Akwesasne Mohawk activist Richard Oakes and how his actions reflected a unique voice of Indigenous leadership within the Red Power movement. Richard Oakes’s life story highlights the development of Indian Cities in Brooklyn, San Francisco, and Seattle while uncovering the intersections of Native Nationalism and Red Power in this dynamic era of American history.

Dr. Kent Blansett is a Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Shawnee, and Potawatomi descendant from the Blanket, Panther, and Smith families. He is the Langston Hughes Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies and History at the University of Kansas. Professor Blansett also serves as the founder and Executive Director for the American Indian Digital History Project . His latest book, 18 years in the making, is the first biography to explore the dynamic life and times of Akwesasne Mohawk student leader Richard Oakes, who was a key figure in the 1969 takeover of Alcatraz Island by the organization Indians of All Tribes.

Watch Kent Blansett’s lecture below or on Facebook .

This event is sponsored by the Center for the Humanities, Department of History, the Tomaquag Museum , and College of Arts and Sciences.

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