The Written Rhetorical Strategies Implemented by Indigenous Activists During the Occupation of Alcatraz (2023)

Undergraduate: Jenna Rupp

Faculty Advisor: Pedro Lopes de Almeida
Department: English and Comparative Literature

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In the late 1960s and early 1970s a wave of Indigenous activism swept across the nation, as organizations such as the American Indian Movement coordinated protests to address the continued mistreatment of Indigenous Americans and advocate for self-determination. One of the most pivotal protests of this era was the Occupation of Alcatraz, yet this movement has produced much less scholarship than other, more brazen protests. The Occupation of Alcatraz, which lasted from November 20, 1969, to June 11, 1971 was a paramount turning point in the “Red Power Movement,” and inspired decades of Indigenous activist strategies. However, a large amount of scholarship concerning the Occupation of Alcatraz is largely informative, and does not provide a deep analysis of the occupiers of “The Rock” or their strategies, goals, and legacies. The Occupation of Alcatraz was a movement that would influence future Indigenous movements which adopted the strategies examined in this paper. My research project attempts to close the current gap in literature on the movement by providing a thorough analysis of the discursive rhetorical strategies implemented by the occupiers in the two primary manifestos from the movement: the Alcatraz Proclamation and the Alcatraz Letter. By examining these documents, and the rhetorical strategies implemented, I hope to find how these works attest, both directly and indirectly, to the goals of the occupation, primarily those of self-determination, sovereignty, and land restoration. I also hope to prove that these rhetorical strategies would go on to influence decades of Indigenous activism, into modern-day resistance.

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