It was 50 years ago this Thursday that San Francisco’s own annual ‘Unthanksgiving’ started on Alcatraz Island, and as always, this year’s sunrise ceremony will be streaming online if you can’t make it to Alcatraz at 6 am.

We are reminded that this is Yelamu, Ohlone Territory on Thanksgiving morning when Alcatraz Island is the site of this Thursday’s 50th anniversary Indigenous Thanksgiving Sunrise Gathering. The first of these ceremonies was exactly 50 years ago Thursday, on Thanksgiving Day 1975 (which also happened to be on November 27 that year, too). The Indigenous Thanksgiving Sunrise Gathering was meant as a counter-celebration to Thanksgiving itself, known as “Unthanksgiving,” and paying homage to the Indigenous peoples who’ve survived centuries of lasting harms on their unceded land.

This close to the event, it is exceedingly difficult to get boat tickets to Alcatraz in person for the ceremony, though it is still possible. You can also just stream the event live online.

The ceremony will be streaming live on the International Indian Treaty Council Facebook page, the KPFA website and on the radio at KPFA 94.1 FM. Those live broadcasts will be from 6 am - 8 am on Thursday, November 27.

If you do really want to try and go in person, you’d better be prepared to get to Pier 33 at about 3:30 am or earlier Thursday morning. All of the Alcatraz City Cruises for the morning are sold out, but organizers say that “online ferry tickets are sold out but there will be 500 available at the box office on the day of the event.” You can get more information about the Alcatraz Cruise at Pier 33 here.

While Thursday is the 50th anniversary Indigenous Thanksgiving Sunrise Gathering, the genesis of the event dates even earlier. It was established as a tribute to the November 1969 – June 1971 occupation of Alcatraz by Native American activists. A Lakota Sioux activist at the time argued that because the federal government gave up the former prison island and deemed it “surplus property,” by treaty, it should have been offered to Native Americans.

The activists did not get any of their demands met (they demanded deed and ownership of Alcatraz Island), but their 19-month occupation became a media cause célèbre and elevated the Native American rights movement to national prominence. It also eventually won a number of Native rights policy concessions out of the Nixon administration.  

That occupation served as the inspiration for the Indigenous Thanksgiving Sunrise Gathering that started in 1975, and still continues 50 years later.

“In the late 1960s and early 70s, the Chippewa started the Thanksgiving, what we called ‘Unthanksgiving,” said Bill Means, a surviving Lakota member who was at the original 1969-71 occupation, on KPFA’s Unthanksgiving podcast last year. “We began to promote it as Indigenous Peoples Day.”

Eventually, many states and municipalities renamed Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day. Then-President Joe Biden officially made Columbus Day into Indigenous Peoples Day with a 2024 declaration.

“That’s how the Alcatraz activities started,” Means explained. “There’s two of them. Of course, the one on Columbus Day, and then there’s the one on Thanksgiving which is a national prayer day, which we go there and have a sunrise ceremony. So there’s two major events there every year since that time in the early 70s.”

“We’ve been going there every year, and of course, it’s become quite a cultural event, especially on Indigenous Peoples Thanksgiving,” Means added.

And 50 years later, it’s still quite the cultural event, and one that we should all experience (if even just via webcast) on some Thanksgiving during our time in the Bay Area.

Related: 'Unthanksgiving': Scenes From The Annual Native American Ceremony On Alcatraz [SFist]

Image: @treatycouncil via Twitter