Richard Oakes (activist)

Conflicts over leadership and the influx of non-indigenous Americans diminished the important stance of the original occupants. In June 1971 the United States government removed the remaining 15 occupants from the island.

In 1970 the island began to fall into disarray. On January 5, 1970, Oakes' 12-year-old adopted daughter, Yvonne, fell to her death onto concrete steps. After her funeral, Oakes and Marrufo left the island.

Oakes was disappointed with the classes offered at SF State and went on to work with an anthropology professor, Dr. Bea Medicine, to create one of the first Native American Studies departments in the nation. He developed the initial curriculum and encouraged other Native Americans to enroll at San Francisco State University. At the same time, the Mohawk National Council was forming and traveling in troupes to fight oppression of Mohawk religion by means of peaceful protest, which they called White Roots of Peace. In the spring of 1969, Oakes met the members of the White Roots of Peace, who encouraged him to take a stand and fight for what he believed in. Oakes had also gained the support of many students. He went on to play an integral role in the Occupation of Alcatraz. Also in 1969, he married Annie Marrufo, who was part of the Pomo Nation, and Oakes adopted all five of her children.

In 1969, Oakes led a group of students and urban Bay Area Native Americans in an occupation of Alcatraz Island that would last until 1971. He also recruited 80 UCLA students from the American Indian Studies Center.

While working on the Newport, Rhode Island Bridge, Oakes met and married an Italian/English woman from Bristol, Rhode Island. They had one son, Bryan Oakes, who was born in June 1968. Pressured out of his marriage by his father-in-law, Richard left the two, divorcing his wife, and traveled west. He reached San Francisco and decided to enroll at San Francisco State University. While studying at SFSU, Oakes worked as a bartender in the Mission District of San Francisco, which brought him in contact with the local Native American communities.

Richard Oakes (May 22, 1942 – September 20, 1972) was a Mohawk Native American activist. He spurred Native American studies in university curricula and is credited for helping to change US federal government Indian termination policy policies of Native American peoples and culture. Oakes led a nineteen-month occupation of Alcatraz Island with LaNada Means, approximately 50 California State University students, and 37 others. The Occupation of Alcatraz is credited for opening a rediscovered unity among all Native American tribes.

Richard Oakes was born on May 22, 1942, in St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, a location known in Mohawk as Akwesasne, the US portion of a reservation that spills into Canada across the St. Lawrence River. Like many of his ancestors, Oakes spent most of his childhood fishing and planting beans. He then began working at a local dock area on the St. Lawrence Seaway, but was laid off at the age of sixteen, after which he worked as a high steelworker, a job that entailed a great deal of traveling.