Alcatraz Is Not An Island-Documentary Screening

This event is part of the One Book One Community partnership between Williamsburg Regional Library and William & Mary. The month-long series will include a January 24 discussion with Tommy Orange, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist There There. His novel examines the lives of 12 different Native Americans in the week leading up to the first Oakland Powwow, and the events that will engulf them all.

From November 1969 to June 1971, Native Americans from across the country occupied Alcatraz. How did the idea come about, how did activists led by the American Indian Movement successfully land on the island, and what happened when the occupation ended? Archival film and interviews with participants bring an immediacy to the Emmy Award-winning documentary originally shown on PBS.