Alabama Gates 2024 was a weekend of free community events in Lone Pine, California, November 15 – 17, 2024, commemorating the centennial of the Alabama Gates Occupation. This significant historical event occurred when the people of Owens Valley non-violently seized the Los Angeles Aqueduct’s control gates just north of Lone Pine on November 16, 1924, diverting the entire flow of the aqueduct into the historic Owens River channel in protest of the City of Los Angeles’ aggressive land acquisition and water harvesting activities within the valley that began with the construction and completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. The 1924 Alabama Gates occupation evolved into a multi-day community picnic as 700 to 1,500 Owens Valley residents gathered in solidarity with the occupiers over four days.
Our event marked this legendary act of civil disobedience, which reverberated worldwide, illuminating these two regions’ complicated and intertwined water history. But it also reflects how white settlers had previously confiscated and occupied Payahüünadü, the ancestral lands of the Paiute and Shoshone People in what is now called Owens Valley, along with the repercussions of this settler colonialism on contemporary Tribal residents who continue to live here.
Our November 15 – 17, 2024, program included roundtable discussions at Lone Pine’s Statham Hall, a no-host community picnic at Lone Pine’s Spainhower Park featuring local food truck concessionaires, film screenings at the Museum of Western Film History, and an interpretive walking tour with a local naturalist at Patsiata (Owens Lake).
This event was produced by There It Is—Take It! in partnership with Sierra Forever (formerly ESIA). Our program was made possible with support from California Humanities, a partner of the NEH. Visit our website at alabamagates2024.org.
ABOUT THIS TRACK
Our first panel discussion on Saturday, November 16, 2024, with Payahüünadü Tribal representatives Kyndall Noah, Communications Specialist, OVIWC; Noah Williams, Water Program Coordinator for the Big Pine Paiute Tribe with Dr. Sophia Borgias, Assistant Professor at Boise State University as panel moderator.
CREDITS
Fault Line Radio, a broadcasting project of Metabolic Studio broadcasted our three panel discussions live from Statham Hall in Lone Pine on 89.9 FM. Big thanks to Audrey Clementine Turner for streaming and recording these sessions over the weekend of November 15 – 17, 2024.
