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Wampanoag Takeover: Mashpee Nine Film screening and Q&A with Paula Peters

Film Showing and Q&A with Paula Peters (author of Mashpee Nine).

On the night of 29th July 1976, a group of nine young Wampanoag men were confronted, brutally beaten and arrested by 30 police officers dressed in riot gear. These men were not out to cause trouble; they were not seeking to offend anyone. They were simply celebrating their cultural heritage and history in a way that newcomers to the town of Mashpee did not understand.

This incident involving evolved into a high-profile trial of nine young men arrested. Defended by one of the American Indian Movement’s most skilled and dogged attorneys.

Some 40 years later, the legacy of this story lives on in a book by Paula Peters titled ‘Mashpee Nine: A Story of Cultural Justice’. The young men targeted by police on that fateful night are now elders, yet the incident is not widely known outside of the Mashpee Wampanoag.
This short documentary film recovers the story of the Mashpee Nine and will be presented in The Drum, followed by a Q&A with filmmaker, Paula Peters.