Richard Moves Camp leads Indigenous Peoples’ Day in California with a sunrise gathering on Alcatraz Island

Richard Moves Camp arrived at Alcatraz Island with elder pains, wit and prayers.

“I got a pin in my back, and it’s keeping me together,” said Moves Camp (Oglala Lakota), who’d  traveled from South Dakota. “I have to oil it once in a while, and then I got a new organ transplant.”

Moves Camp spoke to a crowd of nearly 3,000 Monday at the beginning of a sunrise gathering prayer to begin Indigenous Peoples’ Day in California. There, he honored Indigenous activists who occupied Alcatraz from 1969 to 1971 and acknowledged 19 Hopi people who were imprisoned there in 1895 for refusing to send their relatives to boarding school. Several relatives from those Hopi people also spoke. 

“As we fade off into the old spiritual world, we know now that 50 years from now the great grandchildren will still be here,” Moves Camp said. “The fire will still be here. That is the prayer that was made by the ancestors. So at this time, I'm very happy to be here. I'm glad to see all the old relatives and some of the new ones.”

Indigenous Peoples’ Day is celebrated as a federal holiday every second Monday of October in cities and tribal communities across the U.S. This year, events across the country happened over the weekend to celebrate the holiday.

The first Indigenous Peoples’ Day happened in 1992 in Berkeley, California. The day is to celebrate Indigenous culture, community and share it with non-Indigenous people.

The International Indian Treaty Council, which was founded in Standing Rock in 1974, hosted the event at Alcatraz.