Happy birthday, Richard Oakes! (May 22, 1942)

An activist and organizer of the Mohawk people, Richard Oakes was born in the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation before traveling to San Francisco and studying at San Francisco State University. Disappointed with the courses offered at SFSU, Oakes worked with Lakota anthropologist Beatrice Medicine to create one of the first departments for Native American Studies in the country. Oakes became an active champion and fighter for the cultural and political rights of indigenous people, helping to lead a year-and-a-half long occupation of Alcatraz Island. The occupation had a direct impact on US government policy, resulting in the end of the assimilationist doctrine of tribal termination. After the occupation, Oakes continued to fight for indigenous peoples’ rights before being shot and killed at the age of 30.