The Civil Rights Movement: The Red Power Movement

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The Red Power movement was a part of the Civil Rights Movements that took place in the United States from 1960s-1970s. The Red Power Movement is also known as the American Indian Movement (AIM). This movement was devoted to getting the United States Federal Government to return the land that was formerly owned by the Indians. The Red Power movement was political. The Native Americans were rebellious and they would have done anything including break the law to get back their land. Majority of these Native Americans were from the urban neighborhoods and not from the Indian reservations. In 1968, about 200 Native Americans took over the abandoned federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay. Indian activists occupied the island for 19 months to draw attention to the bad conditions of the nation's Indian reservations. The Indian Reservations had no running water, poor sanitation facilities, the unemployment rate is very high, health care facilities were not available, etc. The activists called themselves Indians of All Tribes. They offered the United States government "$24 in glass beads and red cloth to buy Alcatraz. Through the 1960s, Native Americans were the poorest minority group in the United States, they were more disadvantaged than any other group. In 1970, the American Indian unemployment rate was 10 …show more content…

Native Americans were banned from fishing in certain rivers by the government and other non-Native Americans. Some were even detained for trying to fish in the same place as other people. This began the Native Americans fight with the police. It led them to have to go to the Supreme Court and later the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Indians. One of the most important organization of the Red Power Movement was the American Indian Movement (AIM). This group was founded in 1968 from the state of Minneapolis. Their goal was to stop the police's brutality against the

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