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Union Pacific Railroad Museum and Union Pacific’s Council of Native American Heritage (CONAH) employee resource group will celebrate National Native American History Month with a free, virtual presentation by Professor Kent Blansett, University of Kansas at 11:30 a.m. on Friday, November 6.
To register for the event, please visit the Union Pacific Museum page.
Drawing from his recent book “A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement”(Yale University Press, 2018), Blansett will discuss Richard Oakes’s critical role in Red Power activism from the 1960s to the 1970s. He will highlight the 50thanniversary of the nineteen-month takeover of Alcatraz Island by the organization Indians of All Tribes. Oakes also helped organize the highly publicized Alcatraz, Fort Lawton, and Pit River “takeovers.” His assassination in 1972 inspired the Trail of Broken Treaties march on Washington, D.C., and unified a movement that eventually ushered in the era of self-determination in the mid-1970s.
Blansett will also explore the life of Akwesasne Mohawk activist Richard Oakes and how his actions reflected a unique voice of Indigenous leadership within the Red Power movement. Richard Oakes’s life can serve as a lens to highlight the development of Indian Cities in Brooklyn, San Francisco, and Seattle while exploring the intersections of Native Nationalism and Red Power in this dynamic era of American history.
Professor Kent Blansett is a Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Shawnee, and Potawatomi descendant from the Blanket, Panther, and Smith families, and is currently the Langston Hughes Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies and History at the University of Kansas. He also serves as the founder and executive director for the American Indian Digital History Project and has published numerous articles and book chapters including: When the Stars Fell from the Sky: The Cherokee Nation and Autonomy during the Civil War and San Francisco, Red Power, and the Emergence of an Indian City. His latest book, eighteen-years in the making, is the first biography to explore the dynamic life and times of Akwesasne Mohawk student leader Richard Oakes, who was a key figure in the 1969 takeover of Alcatraz Island by the organization Indians of All Tribes. Published by Yale University Press in a newly released in paperback edition for 2020, Blansett’s book entitled, A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement highlights Oakes’s pivotal role in Red Power activism from the 1960s and 1970s that sparked Native liberation movements throughout North America. Blansett’s book has garnered national attention with reviews in the Los Angeles Times, a feature on NPR’s Latino USA, and has been optioned for a future movie.
About Union Pacific Railroad Museum
The Union Pacific Railroad Museum is housed in a historic Carnegie Library building in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where visitors will discover an extensive compilation of artifacts, photographs, documents and equipment from more than 150 years of our nation's most ambitious endeavors – including constructing the transcontinental railroad and settling the West. Among the most popular museum exhibits are "America Travels by Rail," which celebrates the height of passenger travel; the Lincoln Collection, featuring artifacts from President Abraham Lincoln's rail car and funeral; and an exhibit that features the technology and innovation that sustain Union Pacific as a railroad industry leader. The Union Pacific Railroad Museum’s mission is to promote a sense of connectedness that’s shared by generations of people whose personal and family histories have been touched by the railroad.
About Union Pacific’s Council of Native American Heritage (CONAH)
The mission of CONAH is to aid in the recruitment, retention, and advancement of Union Pacific employees of Native American Heritage. CONAH accomplishes this by promoting and facilitating the personal and professional growth of these employees; working with Union Pacific Senior Leadership to develop an awareness of diversity issues; and identifying and taking advantage of opportunities to build bridges to the Native American community. The group’s membership is comprised of employees representing 16 native tribes including the Apache, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Navajo.
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This blog originated as a press release from the Union Pacific Railroad Museum.
