Intertribal Friendship House

About me:

We are located at:

523 International Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94606
510.836.1955

Hours:
Tuesday 6-10 PM
Thursday 6-9 PM
Friday 6-8 PM


For over fifty years the IFH has served as the heart of the Bay Area Indian Community. It was established in 1955 to respond to the needs of American Indian people of many tribes who had migrated into the area through the Federal relocation program. For Urban Native Peoples IFH has served as the Urban Reservation and Homeland.

In many cases it is one of the few places that keeps them connected to their culture and traditions through pow wow dance, drumming, beading classes, and the many social gatherings, cultural events, and ceremonies that are held there.

It has also served as the meeting place and organizing center for American Indian activism of the 1960s and '70s including the occupation of Alcatraz, the initiation of The Longest Walk, and the creation of the AIM for freedom Survival School, among many other events and actions that had far-reaching effects nationally, many of which continue today.

"The Intertribal Friendship House is more than an organization. It is the heart of a vibrant tribal community” said Wilma Mankiller, former Principal Chief, Cherokee Nation. “When we returned to our Oklahoma homelands twenty years later, we took incredible memories of the many people in the Bay Area who helped shape our values and beliefs."

Intertribal Friendship House (IFH) sprang up out of the need for relocated Indians to congregate together, to help each other survive and to forge what became the Urban Indian Community in the San Francisco Bay Area. IFH became the model that other Indian Centers with a specific focus grew out of and replicated.