Canada's Other Red Scare: rights, decolonization, and Indigenous political protest in the global sixties

Abstract

This dissertation examines the histories of Indigenous protest, commonly known as “Red Power,” in the 1960s and 1970s in the town of Kenora, Ontario. Among the themes discussed are the associations of Indian and Métis activists with Third World national liberation movements, Black Power groups in North America and other Indigenous organizations, such as the American Indian Movement. This study pursues numerous themes, including: racialization, transnational decolonization, Canadian national identity and regional history. While previous studies on the era popularly understood as “the sixties” tend to focus on the particularities of the Canadian context, this dissertation suggests that the changing nature of Indigenous protest during the 1960s and 1970s forms a crucial link between Canada and global forces of social change that defined this era. Moments of Indigenous protest in Kenora, were not just singular episodes. Instead, actions such as the main street march in 1965 and the Anicinabe Park takeover in 1974 episode should be placed within the national and global movement of armed standoffs, occupations, and civil disobedience and understood through the broader social, cultural and political frameworks of decolonization during the 1960s and 1970s.