LUMPENPROLETARIAT—It’s Unthanksgiving Day again. And people of conscience converge once again on Alcatraz Island for the annual Sunrise Ceremony, invoking the historic occupation of Alcatraz Island by the Alcatraz-Red Power Movement, which lasted for 19 months, from November 20, 1969 to June 11, 1971.
Today, continuing the annual tradition for 2016, free speech radio KPFA broadcast live from the Sunrise Ceremony on Alcatraz Island. Since 1970, Native Americans of New England also hold a similar National Day of Mourning event on the fourth Thursday of November, the same day as the holiday, which President Lincoln coined, Thanksgiving. The Alcatraz Island Sunrise Ceremony event is usually sold out, as authorities only allow a certain number of visitors on the island at any one time. (And to get to Alcatraz Island, each person must pay the Alcatraz Island ferry service fee.) Diverse groups of people gather in solidarity on this national day of mourning for indigenous peoples rights. The American myth of Thanksgiving, by which noble settlers pioneered undiscovered lands, giving thanks to their native neighbours with whom they traded, gives way to genocide and bloodshed when confronted with the cold reality of history. For indigenous peoples, today, the fourth Thursday of November, is a National Day of Mourning. When the American Indian Movement occupied Alcatraz Island back in November of 1969, they turned to KPFA radio in Berkeley, CA and the Pacifica Radio Network to get their voices out to the American people. Now, as then, free speech KPFA radio is the only broadcaster to provide coverage of the annual Sunrise Ceremony on Alcatraz Island. Listen (and/or download) here. [1]
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KPFA RADIO—[24 NOV 2016] [transcript and notes pending]
Learn more at KPFA RADIO.
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[Image: By Source, Fair use, ]
[25 NOV 2016]
[Last modified at 11:41 PST on 27 NOV 2016]
