Richard Oakes

Released
Date of birth:22. 05. 1942
Date of death:20. 09. 1972
Age:30† Deceased
Gender:Male
Race:Native American
Era:1960s
State:California
Support
Indigenous Sovereignty
Richard Oakes

Biography

Richard Oakes was a Mohawk activist who led the 1969–1971 occupation of Alcatraz Island, a landmark event of the Red Power movement, and helped establish one of the first Native American Studies programs. His activism brought tear gas, beatings, and repeated brief jailings. He was shot and killed in 1972 by a YMCA camp manager, who was acquitted after claiming self-defense.

Case

Arrested: May 3, 1971
Sentence: Ten days in jail and a $125 fine for the Middletown conviction — his only documented jail sentence for his activism. His other arrests brought only brief detention: at the 1970 Pit River mass arrest he was bailed out and released the same evening; at Fort Lawton (March 1970) he was held in the military stockade and released (the related sentences were suspended); and after the November 1970 armed toll blockade at the Stewart's Point Rancheria he was arrested for "armed robbery" (bail $6,125) but released once he agreed to repay the toll fees. (His only lengthy incarceration was pre-political: a three-year sentence at Comstock/Great Meadow prison as a young man, on which he was paroled within the first year.) Verdict as recorded: Yes — convicted by an all-white jury of trespass and unlawful entry of a government facility for the May 1971 Middletown occupation. (His other Red Power arrests did not lead to substantial convictions.)
Convicted: Yes

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