Native American activists occupy Alcatraz Island, 49 years ago

The future of Alcatraz Island had already been the focus of considerable debate in San Francisco when American Indian activists took matters into their own hands by occupying the vacant site 49 years ago this month.

Proposals to that point in 1969 included a bid by tour companies to turn the island into an attraction that one San Francisco official feared would become “the Coney Island of the West,” and a plan by Texas oil tycoon Lamar Hunt to create a museum in tribute to the United States space program, with pioneer rocket scientist Wernher von Braun as a consultant. Those ideas were opposed by conservationists.