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McCaffrey Seminar Series - Öykü Demir
The Student Roots of Resistance: San Francisco State University and the Occupation of Alcatraz Island (1966-1971)
This research examines the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island as an extension of student activism in the San Francisco Bay Area. It explores how Native American students participated in the Third World Liberation Front strikes alongside Black and other marginalized student activists, developing organizing strategies centered on self-determination, cultural survival, and decolonial education. By comparing campus activism with the Alcatraz Proclamation and other primary sources, this project highlights the often-overlooked connection between student movements and Native resistance. It argues that the Alcatraz occupation was not an isolated act of protest, but part of a broader movement shaped by cross-racial student solidarity and struggles for sovereignty and institutional change.