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MN: Now I know Glide was very involved with the Third World Strike, did they get involved with the Native Americans when they occupied Alcatraz in '69?

LW: Oh, Third World Strike, not that I remember, but I do remember the Golden Gate JACL, that was a, kind of like a, the more radical, or you might call the progressive JACLers had a Golden Gate chapter. And one of the things they decided to do was to get on a boat and go to Alcatraz, and they may have brought some goodies with them in support when they, when they were on Alcatraz. I wanted to go on that. I was down there ready to get on the boat, but a friend of mine who's a photographer had never... 'course, I knew he wanted to go out and I said to him, "You take my place. You go ahead," because I'd been there already. I'd gone by myself to Alcatraz. Actually, my wife and I went by ourselves to Alcatraz during that, when they were there because a Methodist publication -- it's a monthly publication that specializes in doing stories and articles about Methodist outreach mission -- knew that I was in San Francisco and asked me to do a story for their publication about the occupation of Alcatraz. So I arranged with the council, that was a Native American council that clears these trips, I cleared with them, they gave me permission to go out and do this story. So since I had been there and did this story I said, "You go ahead and take my place," 'cause I'd been there, so that, I don't know if he took any pictures, but at least he, I think the Golden Gate chapter of the JACL has some historic pictures of the journey to Alcatraz. I think there was, it was a boatload of people. There must've been about eighteen or nineteen JAers there.

MN: When you and your wife went on your own earlier, what was the reception from the Native Americans?

LW: Oh, they were very cordial. They were proud of what they were doing, what they were trying to do, and they took us around and showed us the various things that were happening in terms of cooking meals, craftwork, auto, they were taking care of vehicles, auto mechanics, they were, they showed us all the activities that were going on in Alcatraz.

MN: Now you also mentioned the Golden Gate JACL, are you one of the cofounders?

LW: I don't think I was a cofounder. When I learned about them, they were in college and friends, I said, oh yeah, I'll be a part of this, so there were others, like Ray Okamura and Paul and Mary Ann Takagi that were the initiators of it, and Edison Uno, I think, was a part of the Golden Gate chapter.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.