This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los Angeles

1960s

Contents of this path:

im Lawson, pioneering expert on nonviolence and teacher to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis, led civil rights workshops simulating violent reactions of white people at lunch counters. This was to train the nonviolent resisters not to react with violence. Lawson also discusses the importance of discipline in nonviolent movements: "You cannot go on a demonstration with 25 people doing whatever they want to do. They have to have a common discipline… The difficulty with nonviolent people and efforts is that they don’t recognize the necessity of fierce discipline and training, and strategizing, and planning, and recruiting, and doing the kind of things you do to have a movement. That can’t happen spontaneously. It has to be done systematically." Lawson is the voice in the video, the facilitator of the workshop, and the person interviewed at the end. This clip taken from "A Force More Powerful", an excellent documentary on the history of nonviolent movements, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpBoH....
April 27: An altercation leads to police entering the Los Angeles Temple and killing its unarmed secretary, Ronald Stokes. "They're going to pay for it," Malcolm declares, and goes to Los Angeles to eulogize Stokes at a funeral attended by 2,000 people. He says the police shot "innocent unarmed Black men in cold blood" and urges action. But Elijah Muhammad resists calls for an aggressive response. An all-white coroner's jury deliberates about Stokes' killing for 23 minutes and terms it "justifiable homicide." By contrast, 14 Nation of Islam members are indicted for assault in the incident and 11 are found guilty. Later this year, Malcolm confirms that Elijah Muhammad has engaged in repeated adultery and had children with at least three of his young secretaries. "I felt almost out of my mind," Malcolm says. Herbert Muhammad asks Muhammad Speaks to minimize coverage of Malcolm X.
William H. Parker, who headed the LAPD from 1950 to 1966, is considered the originator of the warrior cop policing style.(Los Angeles Times) The LAPD’s racial animus during this time is often attributed to the bigotry of its chief. Parker was a cartoonish racist who likened Black people to monkeys and thought Latinos inherently criminal due to their descent from what he called the “wild tribes” of Mexico. He once complained during a television news interview that an influx of African Americans moving to L.A. to escape the Jim Crow South had “flooded a community that wasn’t prepared to meet them. We didn’t ask these people to come here.” According to Kramer, Parker was a punch-below-the-belt politician who maintained his authority in part by spying on his adversaries and threatened them with the dirt he uncovered. Yet he wasn’t some rogue white supremacist who slipped through the cracks into his position. Parker enjoyed strong support from L.A.’s white business leaders and homeowners. Even after the brutality of his department drew national scrutiny in the wake of the 1965 Watts riots, Parker’s white base of support rallied around him. It took death, not outrage, to finally remove him from his position in 1966, after which city leaders changed the name of LAPD headquarters to honor him — and kept it there until 2009. Parker’s LAPD, much like other problematic police departments across California, was possible only because of the support of the white power structure. And that power structure wanted residential segregation. L.A.’s powerful real estate industry, as detailed in Andrea Gibson’s “City of Segregation,” did everything it could to enforce and profit from segregation. According to Gibson, the industry furthered the myth that Black and Latino integration was bad for property values, thus ensuring a premium on homes in white communities, while simultaneously imposing artificial scarcity in segregated ones, driving up prices for jam-packed residents of color who were prevented from living elsewhere.
On Sunday, May 14, 1961—Mother's Day—scores of angry white people blocked a Greyhound bus carrying black and white passengers through rural Alabama. The attackers pelted the vehicle with rocks and bricks, slashed tires, smashed windows with pipes and axes and lobbed a firebomb through a broken window. As smoke and flames filled the bus, the mob barricaded the door. "Burn them alive," somebody cried out. "Fry the goddamn niggers." An exploding fuel tank and warning shots from arriving state troopers forced the rabble back and allowed the riders to escape the inferno. Even then some were pummeled with baseball bats as they fled. A few hours later, black and white passengers on a Trailways bus were beaten bloody after they entered whites-only waiting rooms and restaurants at bus terminals in Birmingham and Anniston, Alabama.
Worked from a studio at Immaculate Heart College. "LA's most famous artist in the 1960s, her prints became increasingly political, which led L.A.'s famously right wing cardinal, Francis McIntyre, to order her either to confine herself to traditional religious duties or to renounce her vows. She left the order in 1968, followed by most of the rest of the sisters at the college. " - Set the Night on Fire: LA in the Sixties
Worked from a studio at Immaculate Heart College. "LA's most famous artist in the 1960s, her prints became increasingly political, which led L.A.'s famously right wing cardinal, Francis McIntyre, to order her either to confine herself to traditional religious duties or to renounce her vows. She left the order in 1968, followed by most of the rest of the sisters at the college. " - Set the Night on Fire: LA in the Sixties
Photographed by Harry Adams (from CSUN digital archives).Ron Karenga (left), also known as Maulana Ndabezith Karenga or Roland McKinley Everett, sits next to Hakim Jamal. Karenga is known for creating the first Pan-African holiday, Kwanzaa, in 1966. Hakim Jamal was cousin of Malcolm X and co-founder of the organization "US," a group promoting African-American cultural unity. https://digital-collections.csun.edu/digital/collection/Bradley/id/3554
Striking workers are subjected to physical and verbal attacks throughout their peaceful demonstrations, and on March 16, the Senate Sub-Committee on Migratory Labor held hearings in Delano. March 17, the morning following the hearings, Cesar Chavez sets out with 100 farm workers to begin his pilgrimage to the San Joaquin Valley. After 25 days, their numbers swell from hundreds, to an army of thousands.
Striking workers are subjected to physical and verbal attacks throughout their peaceful demonstrations, and on March 16, the Senate Sub-Committee on Migratory Labor held hearings in Delano. March 17, the morning following the hearings, Cesar Chavez sets out with 100 farm workers to begin his pilgrimage to the San Joaquin Valley. After 25 days, their numbers swell from hundreds, to an army of thousands.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, an event that sent shock waves reverberating around the world. A Baptist minister and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s, using a combination of impassioned speeches and nonviolent protests to fight segregation and achieve significant civil rights advances for African Americans. His assassination led to an outpouring of anger among Black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning that helped speed the way for an equal housing bill that would be the last significant legislative achievement of the civil rights era.
The Voting Rights Act, adopted initially in 1965 and extended in 1970, 1975, and 1982, is generally considered the most successful piece of civil rights legislation ever adopted by the United States Congress. The Act codifies and effectuates the 15th Amendment’s permanent guarantee that, throughout the nation, no person shall be denied the right to vote on account of race or color. In addition, the Act contains several special provisions that impose even more stringent requirements in certain jurisdictions throughout the country.
The welfare mothers movement in Los Angeles can be traced to 1963 and the founding of the ANC Mothers Anonymous of Watts. Initially it had little connection with the larger women's movement, and its members did not view themselves as part of that movement. Later, after the formation of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), and especially after Johnnie Tillmon took the helm of the national organization, this changed. The turning point might well have been the publication of her 1972 Ms Magazine article, "Welfare is a Woman's Issue." By 1979 and the International Women's Conference in Houston, women of color and poor women had become a visible presence in the larger women's movement (which ranged from reformist groups like NOW to radical feminists) and were making their voices heard and their issues public. At the present time, there is only one interview included in the "Welfare Mothers" series: the oral history of Johnnie Tillmon, one of the founders and leaders of the ANC Mothers Anonymous of Watts. Hopefully, an oral history of Ardelphia Hickey, another key person in the ANC mothers group, might be conducted eventually. It should also be noted that Alicia Escalante, the founder of the ELA Welfare Rights group (later named Chicana Welfare Rights Organization) was interviewed for a Ph.D. dissertation at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. In subsequent years, Congress expanded the act and passed additional civil rights legislation such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Lead-up to the Civil Rights Act
President Lyndon B. Johnson declares the 'War on Poverty' and proposes the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which lays the ground for projects through the Office of Economic Opportunity. In his State of the Union address on Jan. 8, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced his “war on poverty,” when the national poverty rate was 19 percent. His project created Medicare, Medicaid, a permanent food stamp program, Head Start, Volunteers in Service to America and the Job Corps.
Late Nov.-Dec. 1965: The United Farm Workers Organizing Committee initiates a national table grape boycott. In Washington’s Yakima Valley, justice for farm workers would be aided by federal “war on poverty” programs. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed off on the “Economic Opportunity Act of 1964,” effectively initiating the “war on poverty,” as well as the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), with the aim of alleviating the harsh conditions encountered by many populations that had been previously institutionally neglected.3 The role of the war on poverty’s Yakima Valley administrative entity, the Yakima Valley Council for Community (YVCCA), was to train a group of Chicana/o leaders that would organize independently of the YVCCA. The YVCCA thus ushered in the organizational framework of el Movimiento by training its leaders. Prior to war on poverty efforts, the Catholic Cursillo Movement in the Valley trained individuals to take leadership positions within the community.4 The Cursillo movement began in the U.S. in 1957 as a Catholic ministry designed to train members in community leadership and engagement via weekend retreats. One organizer, Ricardo Garcia, noted that Cursillo activity existed around 1964-65, while others contend that Cursillismo didn’t necessarily have an impact until 1967. The movement stressed unity and action to better the lives of others. At the peak of Cursillo and YVCCA action, organizers helped establish centers throughout the valley to aid many of those in need, especially farm workers.
In 1963, Johnnie Tillmon—a black single mother on welfare—decided to get in touch with fellow welfare recipients in Los Angeles. She was tired of enduring the stigma that came with being on welfare—and she did not want to endure it alone. She envisioned a group of welfare recipients that would support one another, exchange advice, and even pressure the California government for policy changes. In putting this group together, the first step was to find out who else was on welfare, or Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). “That was a hard job”, said Tillmon, “because that kind of information was not made public. We were in the housing project manager’s office one day when he was called to the phone. Instead of taking the call in his office, he took it from outside. While he was out, we started looking through the papers on his desk.” Among those papers was a list of neighborhood welfare recipients, and Tillmon “copied the names”. Soon after, she went door-to-door, spoke with neighbors in her housing project, and a group of welfare recipients began to form. This group came to be called Aid to Needy Children-Mothers Anonymous ([1], p. 18), or ANC-MA: one of many local welfare-rights groups across the country. California is indispensible to the welfare-rights story for a number of reasons. It was home to over 50 local welfare-rights groups [2]; more importantly, California can be understood as a testing ground for the policies and ideologies that then-Governor Ronald Reagan would later propagate as US president. Humanities 2017, 6, 14; doi:10.3390/h6020014 www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities Humanities 2017, 6, 14 2 of 12 Finally, California activists lent momentum and leadership to the broader, nationwide movement for welfare rights. In 1966—three years after ANC-MA’s founding—welfare recipients built a national group: the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). The NWRO used lobbying and direct action to pursue a three-pronged agenda: a “guaranteed annual income”, an increase in “availability of welfare benefits and services”, and improved “access to consumer credit ([3], p. 301).” Johnnie Tillmon was selected to serve as the NWRO’s chair, bringing with her the knowledge and experience she had gained in California.
1963 - After an altercation where a cop was shot, LAPD officers attacked the Black Muslim temple, a block away, where unarmed members were leaving after evening prayers. The final tally: one Muslim man dead, seven others seriously wounded, fourteen arraigned on felonies, and the temple ransacked. Malcolm, at the funeral, praised LA Black organizations for protesting the attack: "Our unity shocked them and we should continue to shock the white man by working together." (Set the Night on Fire L.A. n the Sixties, Mike Davis and Jon Wiener)
In August 1964, the North Carolina Eugenics Board met to decide if a 20-year-old Black woman should be sterilized. Because her name was redacted from the records, we call her Bertha. She was a single mother with one child who lived at the segregated O'Berry Center for African American adults with intellectual disabilities in Goldsboro. According to the North Carolina Eugenics Board, Bertha had an IQ of 62 and exhibited “aggressive behavior and sexual promiscuity.” She had been orphaned as a child and had a limited education. Likely because of her “low IQ score,” the board determined she was not capable of rehabilitation. Instead the board recommended the “protection of sterilization” for Bertha, because she was “feebleminded” and deemed unable to “assume responsibility for herself” or her child. Without her input, Bertha’s guardian signed the sterilization form.
Since its inception, El Teatro Campesino and its founder and artistic director, Luis Valdez, have set the standard for Latino theatrical production in the United States. Founded in 1965 on the Delano Grape Strike picket lines of Cesar Chavez’s United Farmworkers Union, the company created and performed “actos” or short skits on flatbed trucks and in union halls. Taking the “actos” on tour to dramatize the plight and cause of the farmworkers, El Teatro Campesino was honored in 1969 with an Obie Award for “demonstrating the politics of survival” and with the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award in 1969 and 1972.
“Jane Crow and the Law: Sex Discrimination and Title VII” was written by Pauli Murray and Mary Eastwood in 1965. It was published by the George Washington University Law Review in response to the Civil Rights Act, which had been passed the year before in 1964, and it questions the extent to which the Constitution protects against gender discrimination, and the “interpretation of the sex discrimination provisions of the equal employment opportunity title of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg later read the article at the American Civil Liberties Union to convince the Supreme Court that the Equal Protection Clause does indeed apply to women.
LA's gay history is everywhere, from the endangered former nightclub The Factory to Griffith Park. But in honor of today's landmark Supreme Court decision on marriage equality, why not go and take a look at a particularly special site—this modest Huntington Park house, described by TIME magazine as the house where the first public gay marriage ceremony took place back in 1968. At the time, the house was the location of the Metropolitan Community Church of Los Angeles; the religious organization, founded in October of that year by Reverend Troy D. Perry, was open to LGBT members, as explained on MCC's website. The first MCC service had 12 attendees. In December 1968, the reverend performed the ceremony for two men (it was, of course, not legally binding then). More marriages followed. In March 1969, the reverend oversaw the marriage of two women; their wedding would go on, says an MCC historian, to be "the basis for the world's first lawsuit seeking recognition of same-gender marriage." (Some sources cite this union as the first same-sex marriage, but agree that whichever couple was first, it was Rev. Perry who officiated.)
Thirty-five years ago in April, Yakima Valley farmworkers took to the streets to address low wages and other concerns. The workers, who marched from Granger to Yakima over the course of two days, were led by Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers union. One organizer of the march said its legacy was instilling confidence in area farmworkers and giving them a voice that has been heard in Olympia. “They became emboldened,” recalled Ricardo Garcia, one of the organizers of the 1986 march and one of the founders of Radio KDNA, a Granger-based Spanish-language radio station. The farmworkers movement traces its roots to the Mexican Farm Worker Program — also known as the Bracero program — that brought Mexican nationals to the United States to keep farms working as the military and war industries created a labor shortage. While the program required that farmworkers be treated fairly, they were subjected to brutal working conditions — workers were required to use short-handled hoes — and cheated out of a portion of their wages by the Mexican government, which was supposed to hold a tenth of their paychecks in trust for them. The National Farm Workers Union was organized to combat the abuses that farmworkers faced. Chavez emerged as a leader in the farm labor movement, founding the National Farm Workers Association in 1962 in California with Dolores Huerta, forging alliances with other unions, churches and community groups to push for the end of the Bracero program in 1964. While the program ended, wages remained low. Chavez’s NFWA merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to form United Farm Workers. Tomas Villanueva and Guadalupe Gamboa, sons of Yakima Valley farmworkers, met with Chavez in 1966, and came back to formed the United Farm Workers Cooperative in Toppenish, pushing for better wages, sick pay and help applying for food stamps and other assistance. In the 1980s, following Chavez’s calls for boycotting California grapes until workers receive better wages, labor organizers in Yakima sought Chavez’s help securing better wages in the Valley and promoting organized labor. “We invited him to inspire, motivate people for the farmworker movement,” Garcia said.
On October 29, 1966, the Nation Organization for Women officially adopted their Statement of Purpose. The statement, written by Betty Friedan and Pauli Murray, expressed the organization’s main goals in addressing and fighting the unequal treatment of women in society. This 1966 document is a seminal part of the modern women’s rights movement and played an important role in inspiring more Americans to fight for gender equality. Although their Statement of Purpose was adopted in October, the feminist organization was officially founded on June 30, 1966. The statement described NOW’s purpose as “To take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men.” NOW was created when its founders recognized that women needed a pressure group to combat gender discrimination, as the government agencies and recent laws to address this problem had proven ineffective. A prime example of this was the failure of the Equality Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Title VII is a federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion.) Employers were still discriminating against women in hiring practices and there was unequal pay for women. Secondly, NOW was also influenced by the failure of John F. Kennedy’s 1961 President’s Commission on the Status of Women, headed by Eleanor Roosevelt, to end discrimination against females in education, the workforce and Social Security. The movement was also inspired by Friedan’s 1963 book “The Feminine Mystique,” where she famously expresses her stultifying experiences as a housewife lacking other options in society beyond that domestic role. The founders of NOW hoped that their organization would help women combat discrimination in all aspects of society by lobbying and holding rallies, marches and conferences. NOW broke with previous trends for women’s organizations by including the concerns of black women in their mission. NOW has advocated for many issues they see as necessary for ensuring equality for women, including maternity leave rights in employment, child day care centers, equal job training opportunities, reproductive rights, and the prohibition of sex discrimination in the workplace.
On October 29, 1966, the Nation Organization for Women officially adopted their Statement of Purpose. The statement, written by Betty Friedan and Pauli Murray, expressed the organization’s main goals in addressing and fighting the unequal treatment of women in society. This 1966 document is a seminal part of the modern women’s rights movement and played an important role in inspiring more Americans to fight for gender equality. Although their Statement of Purpose was adopted in October, the feminist organization was officially founded on June 30, 1966. The statement described NOW’s purpose as “To take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men.” NOW was created when its founders recognized that women needed a pressure group to combat gender discrimination, as the government agencies and recent laws to address this problem had proven ineffective. A prime example of this was the failure of the Equality Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Title VII is a federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion.) Employers were still discriminating against women in hiring practices and there was unequal pay for women. Secondly, NOW was also influenced by the failure of John F. Kennedy’s 1961 President’s Commission on the Status of Women, headed by Eleanor Roosevelt, to end discrimination against females in education, the workforce and Social Security. The movement was also inspired by Friedan’s 1963 book “The Feminine Mystique,” where she famously expresses her stultifying experiences as a housewife lacking other options in society beyond that domestic role. The founders of NOW hoped that their organization would help women combat discrimination in all aspects of society by lobbying and holding rallies, marches and conferences. NOW broke with previous trends for women’s organizations by including the concerns of black women in their mission. NOW has advocated for many issues they see as necessary for ensuring equality for women, including maternity leave rights in employment, child day care centers, equal job training opportunities, reproductive rights, and the prohibition of sex discrimination in the workplace.
In a 5-4 Supreme Court decision Miranda v. Arizona (1966) ruled that an arrested individual is entitled to rights against self-discrimination and to an attorney under the 5th and 6th Amendments of the United States Constitution. Miranda v. Arizona (1966) culminated in the famed “Miranda rights” requirement during arrests. On March 13, 1963, police arrested Ernesto Miranda on charges of rape and kidnapping after a witness identified him in Phoenix, Arizona. During his two-hour interrogation, police did not advise Miranda on his constitutional rights to an attorney nor against self-incrimination. Nonetheless, he signed a written confession affirming knowledge of these rights and admitting to crimes. This confession led to a June 27, 1963 conviction of rape and kidnapping as well as a robbery pending on Miranda’s record. Judge McFate sentenced Miranda to a maximum fifty-five years in prison. Miranda’s lawyer, Alvin Moore, appealed the case to the Arizona Supreme Court, which reaffirmed the lower court’s decision, arguing that police had not violated Miranda’s constitutional rights in procuring a confession without the presence of a lawyer. The Supreme Court ruled differently on June 13, 1966. It held that presenting Miranda’s confession as evidence violated his constitutional rights under the 5th and 6th Amendments. The 5th Amendment protects from self-incrimination and requires the police to inform the detainee about his or her rights while the 6th guarantees criminal suspects rights to a personal or state issued attorney. Chief Justice Earl Warren articulated that the court permitted confessions or self-incriminating statements in criminal trials only when suspects issued them deliberately after police inform of their rights. Miranda v. Arizona (1966) included four dissenters and three separate dissenting opinions. After Arizona’s ruling was overturned, the state court retried the case without presenting Miranda’s confession. They convicted him of the same charges, and sentenced him to a maximum 30 years in prison. Four years after his release on parole, a killer, who did receive his Miranda rights, stabbed Miranda to death.
Candid Photograph of Cesar Chavez and Robert Kennedy at the Delano Grape Strike. ca. March 16, 1966. 8 x 9.5", pasted to stiff cardboard. Inscribed by Chavez in faded ink in lower margin: "Para Andy y Margarita, Buena Suerte, Cesar E. Chavez" Handwritten note on verso: Delano Grape Strike C. 1966 / Cesar Chavez, Robert Kennedy. As a US Senator, Kennedy visited Chavez (now sometimes called the Latino Martin Luther King Jr.) in the second year of the five-year Delano agricultural workers strike against grape growers in California's central valley. He met with Chavez again in 1968, when he was a presidential candidate, three months before his untimely death.
Protestors fill Motor Ave. as they start marching toward Century Plaza Hotel for an anti-Vietnam War protest. Ten thousand protesters turned out during speech by President Lyndon Johnson.(Ray Graham / Los Angeles Times) . Ten thousand marchers, by most estimates, were assembling across the street from the Century City hotel. Hundreds of nightstick-wielding police — using a parade permit and court order that restricted the marchers from stopping to demonstrate — forcibly dispersed them. The bloody, panicked clash that ensued left an indelible mark on politics, protests and police relations. It marked a turning point for Los Angeles, a city not known for drawing demonstrators to marches in sizable numbers. The significance of the evening lay not simply in the 51 people who were arrested and the scores injured when 500 of the 1,300 police on the scene pushed the demonstrators into, and then beyond, a vacant lot that is now the site of the ABC Entertainment Center. Far more powerfully, the Century Plaza confrontation foreshadowed the explosive growth of the national antiwar movement and its inevitable confrontations with police. It shaped the movement’s rising militancy, particularly among the sizable number of middle-class protesters who expected to do nothing more than chant against Johnson outside the $1,000-a-plate Democratic Party fundraising dinner and were outraged by the LAPD’s hard-line tactics. Johnson rarely campaigned in public again, except for appearances at safe places like military bases. Within nine months, opposition to the war grew so strong that he shelved his reelection campaign. White liberals in Los Angeles, meanwhile, began to complain about excessive force by the LAPD, a subject traditionally raised only by black and Latino residents. By the next summer, when Chicago police beat demonstrators in the street outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the country was at war with itself. In retrospect, the Century Plaza demonstration was one of the earliest battlegrounds. …
The Origin of Affirmative Action Programs Former U.S. President John F. Kennedy used the phrase “affirmative action” in 1961. In an executive order, President Kennedy required federal contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed…without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson issued an order that used the same language to call for nondiscrimination in government employment. FEATURED VIDEO Hate Your Job? 5 Problems That Are in Every Workplace It was not until 1967 that President Johnson addressed sex discrimination. He issued another executive order on October 13, 1967. It expanded his previous order and required the government’s equal opportunity programs to “expressly embrace discrimination on account of sex” as they worked toward equality. The Need for Affirmative Action The legislation of the 1960s was part of a larger climate of seeking equality and justice for all members of society. Segregation had been legal for decades after the end of enslavement. President Johnson argued for affirmative action: if two men were running a race, he said, but one had his legs bound together in shackles, they could not achieve a fair result by simply removing the shackles. Instead, the man who had been in chains should be allowed to make up the missing yards from the time he was bound. If striking down segregation laws could not instantly solve the problem, then positive steps of affirmative action could be used to achieve what President Johnson called “equality of result.” Some opponents of affirmative action saw it as a “quota” system that unfairly demanded a certain number of minority candidates be hired no matter how qualified the competing White male candidate was. Affirmative action brought up different issues concerning women in the workplace. There was little protest of women in traditional “women’s jobs”—secretaries, nurses, elementary school teachers, etc. As more women began to work in jobs that had not been traditional women’s jobs, there was an outcry that giving a job to a woman over a qualified male candidate would be “taking” the job from the man. The men needed the job, was the argument, but the women did not need to work. In her 1979 essay “The Importance of Work,” Gloria Steinem rejected the notion that women should not work if they do not “have to." She pointed out the double standard that employers never ask men with children at home if they need the job for which they are applying. She also argued that many women do, in fact, “need” their jobs. Work is a human right, not a male right, she wrote, and she criticized the false argument that independence for women is a luxury.
For many young Asian Americans in the 1960s, the War in Vietnam was a brutal and urgent politicization. Watching the war unfold on the nightly news, a common sentiment was that America “killing people who looked like us.” Unlike the mainstream anti-war movement, many Asian Americans saw the Vietnam War as genocidal, or at least imperialist. They placed the war within the larger history of anti-Asian racism in America and imperialist expansion into the Third World. In 1969, Asians Americans for Peace was founded in Los Angeles. Groups like the Thai Binh and Van Troi Brigades (named after Vietnamese freedom fighters) formed to mobilize youth. Meanwhile, Asian Movement for Military Outreach
Roots and Resources Founded in 1969 out of a campaign by student activist and faculty allies, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center quickly became a center for resources-gathering and scholarship for the Asian American movement. Asian American student organizations at CSULA, Occidental, USC, and other colleges soon followed. It was a vital hub and training ground for young activists, a place they could earn a salary while doing community work. Roots, the publication which inspired this exhibition’s title, was a course reader published by the UCLA Asian American Studies department in 1971. The editors, many of them young organizers themselves, defined the stakes and reasons for publishing such a volume in the preface: “the lack of appropriate materials in readily accessible form is one of the greatest immediate problems”
Art and Communication The Movement marked the first time Asian people collectively owned and created their own images in this country. Culture—musical, visual, written, performed—was a way to exorcise and subvert dominant American narratives. Young artists had to cut against the stereotypes and caricatures they had been fed since youth. Art was “for the people”: and there was little differentiation between it and activism, and it infused the new identity of Asian America with anti-imperialist and multiethnic critiques. Los Angeles became home to the first Asian American films ever made. Community-based and politically-charged, they showed Asian struggles, families, and histories in a way Hollywood never imagined. A plethora of newspapers got out the word. From personal essays to reports on U.S. militarism and Asian communities, the concerns and goals of the Movement took shape in those worn and circulated pages.
The Movement marked the first time Asian people collectively owned and created their own images in this country. It was no small feat: young artists had to cut against the stereotypes and caricatures they had been fed since youth. These lines from “We Are the Children” on the seminal album A Grain of Sand capture this tension: Foster children of the Pepsi generation Cowboys and Indians ride, red man, ride! Watching war movies with the next-door neighbor Secretly rooting for the other side Culture—musical, visual, written, performed—was a way to exorcise and subvert dominant American narratives. It infused the new identity of Asian America with anti-imperialist and multiethnic critiques. The verse above both names a dominant paradigm then re-appropriates the image of the heroic cowboy and soldier by actually identifying with the ‘villain’—in this case, the indigenous and Asian combatants.
Community and Place Mao told his followers to “serve the people,” and Movement activists took the call to heart. In the context of Los Angeles, they found their calling in historic Japanese, Filipino and Chinese American communities. Often neglected by government agencies and limited by language access and social stigma, these neighborhoods needed jobs, health services, and education access. As these younger, college-educated, radicalized Asian Americans worked in the community, they built intergenerational bridges and emphasized the importance of place. Their battles against eviction and redevelopment took on a double urgency: both protecting historical communities and the new Movement centers that shared spaces with them.
“Hell no, we won’t go!” In the early 1970s, Little Tokyo was marked as a blighted area by the L.A. Master Plan, and the landmark Sun Building was to be torn down and replaced with a luxury hotel. The Sun Building housed the Japanese American Community Services, Asian Involvement Office (or JACS-AI, a more youth- and movement-focused wing of the older service organization), elderly Latino residents, Japanese cultural spaces, and small businesses. In 1973, the Little Tokyo Anti-Eviction Task Force formed to combat the evictions. It disbanded a couple years later, and was replaced by the Little Tokyo People’s Rights Organization (LTPRO). The LTPRO waged a multi-year battle of fundraising, demonstrations, community outreach, and Nisei Week outreach. They demanded the construction of a Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC), jobs for Japanese workers, and senior housing. In 1976, residents of the Sun Building were finally evicted. In a pyrrhic victory, the LTPRO and organizing was able to secure the Little Tokyo Service Center, founded in 1979, and funding for the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, which opened its doors in 1980. Many of those activists also went on to found the National Coalition for Redress/Reparations, which called upon the U.S. government to recognize the legacy of internment.
The Movement suffered from misogyny and homophobia. Though perhaps less so than other Third World left groups (e.g. there were fewer instances of physical abuse and assault), women and queer-identified people fought for presence, voice, and their issues. At the same time, the analysis of a “triple oppression” of class, race, and gender for women, and the creation of a multiracial LGBT identity, opened a profound reworking of patriarchal and heterosexual norms. These movements within the Movement are crucial not only to appraising the Asian American Movement, but offer vital case studies for our intersectional present.
Though Gidra included women on its staff and women’s issues in its pages, a series of “rap sessions” led to a special women’s issue in 1971 with the word “Liberation” and a large Venus symbol on the cover. The issue linked international questions to those at home, from war brides and G.I.s to struggles of women within the Asian American Movement. The focus on the global and the local was also present in the popular International Women’s Day celebrations. Beginning in 1974, the festival united many of the different Movement groups in a common recognition of women’s struggles.
Murase, who completed his undergraduate degree in 1970, said he had few opportunities to learn about Asian Americans in the classroom. In response, he and five other UCLA students established Gidra in 1969, a monthly newspaper that highlighted and commented on Asian American issues while also enabling local artists and writers to share their work. Gidra was initially established at Campbell Hall as an Asian American student publication, Murase said. As Gidra’s influence began to extend beyond UCLA following its early publications, Murase said he and his peers moved their operations to a rented office on Jefferson Boulevard – about five and a half miles from UCLA – and accepted submissions from the larger community, including those who lived outside of Los Angeles or were not of Asian descent. Through the work of its volunteer staff and contributors, Gidra produced a total of 60 issues before its closure in 1974, Murase added. Coming of age in the 1960s, Asian American students at universities developed a new, distinct consciousness as Asian Americans shaped by the racial and international context of the time. By 1968, when the Asian American population numbered about 1.3 million, 80 percent of Japanese Americans and about 50 percent of Chinese Americans and Filipino Americans, respectively, were born in the United States. Asian Americans had come to reach the same educational attainment as whites, but still earned substantially less because of racial discrimination. For example, in 1960 Filipinos earned only 61 percent of the income of whites with comparable educations. Japanese and Chinese also earned less than their white counterparts, making 77 percent and 87 percent, respectively. Among the 107,366 Asian American college students on university campuses in 1970, Chinese and Japanese made up the vast majority, with over eight out of ten Asian American students being of either Japanese or Chinese American descent.
As a newly-formed group identity, Asian American consciousness was rooted in the communities from which they came. Actively seeking to reclaim their histories and to find their own voices, they sought out narratives from their ancestors and elders. They became engaged with their home neighborhoods, creating local programs to “serve the people” and to rally the masses. They also sought to forge solidarities across ethnicity, race, and national boundaries as they identified with other “Third World” peoples. This term recognized the exploitative relations in the global hierarchy where the least developed nations faced oppressive histories and conditions similar to historically marginalized communities in the U.S. Through the practice of supporting one another’s movements and struggles, Asian American students built a collective identity and common cause to address racial injustices. Additionally, Asian American students were deeply influenced by major international developments of the 1960s. The anti-war movement against U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia reached its apex on campuses in early 1968; the success of North Vietnam’s Tet offensive demonstrated that despite the onslaught of U.S. military might, the war could not be easily won. Asian American war protestors realized their paradoxical position. On one hand, they knew they were Americans, but they were being sent to fight an enemy that not only looked like them, but were in a subordinate position in the world order like they found themselves to be within boundaries of their own country
This flier advertises an event titled "The Struggle for National Democracy in the Philippines" which was sponsored by the Union of Democratic Filipinos and Liberation Books. A sideshow, songs and discussion are advertised. In this movement, Asian Americans, who had individually become involved with the causes of the times, drew together to address their own racial status and identity. They confronted enduring stereotypes of the unassimilable heathen, the Yellow Peril, and the perpetual foreigner. This generation of students faced the model minority myth, that Asian American students were expected to be hard-working, studious, and quiet even in the face of discrimination. While many sought to assimilate to mainstream Anglo-American cultural norms, they soon recognized that they could not assimilate fully into the white mainstream. The other racial model for Asian Americans was the Black Power movement, which rejected American racism and promoted Black autonomy, racial pride, and community control. For those African American activists, the ideologies of self-determination and cultural nationalism became realized through militant organizations, a flowering of Black arts and expression, and a reclamation of indigenous and ethnic histories. Some of the subsequent Asian American organizations, such as the Red Guard, modeled themselves partially after the Black Panthers, while others were more connected to diasporic movements, such as the Union of Democratic Filipinos, which was also involved in opposing martial law in the Philippines.
World War II exposed the blatant hypocrisy of American democracy and its institutional racism when the U.S. government incarcerated over 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry in concentration camps. Over six in ten internees were U.S.-born citizens, who were incarcerated for about four years under the suspicion of espionage and fear of their disloyalty. Not until 1988, after Japanese Americans lobbied for redress and reparations, did the U.S. government apologize for unjustly incarcerating its own citizens. In the decade after World War II, Asian Americans remained scarred by the internment and by the anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy era. Consequently, the U.S.-born generations of Asians, who grew up attending American public schools, generally felt pressure to integrate into American society by acculturating and assimilating.
THE CALL FOR ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES ON WEST COAST CAMPUSES, As students became involved with both international and local issues, they began to call for a relevant education that could address these concerns. However, as Irene Dea expressed, they found a system of higher education that largely excluded students of color from admission and whose courses showed little reflection of their histories and experiences
Students had to keep fighting for Asian American and ethnic studies courses to be offered every year in the early period of the ethnic studies centers.After the TWLF strikes at SF State and UC Berkeley and the creation of the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA, the struggle to establish Asian American studies continued as students sought to develop the curriculum that was relevant to their communities
Larry Itliong & other Filipino leaders of Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) approached NFWA to participate in strike against major grape growers of the Central Valley. Filipino farmwohe Delano Grape Strike. Born in the Philippines, Itliong immigrated to the U.S in 1929, hoping to become a lawyer. Instead, he ended up working in the Alaskan fish canneries and along the West Coast as a farm laborer. During that time, he experienced how badly laborers were treated and saw the power they could gain by working together. He became an activist and organizer. Following his service in the U.S. Army during World War II, Itliong became a U.S citizen and in 1954 moved to Stockton’s Little Manila, where he organized for the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). He was so good at recruiting new members that union leaders asked him to move to Delano to organize Filipino grape workers. It was there that he helped change the history of farm labor. On Sept. 8, 1965, he led AWOC members in walking off the grape vineyards to demand wages equal to federal minimum wage and better working conditions. But Itliong knew that for the strike to succeed, they needed members of the National Farm Workers Association to join. He approached NFWA’s leader, César Chávez, with the proposal. On Sept. 16, the AWOC and NFWA joined forces beginning the Delano Grape Strike and Boycott. It lasted five years and was one of the most important social justice and labor movements in American history, ending with victory for the farmworkers. In the meantime, the AWOC and NFWA merged in 1966 to become the United Farm Workers (UFW), with Chávez as director and Itliong as assistant director. In 1971, Itliong left the UFW but continued to work for Filipino Americans until his death in 1977 at age 63. One of his major successes was securing funding for the construction of the Paulo Agbayani Retirement Village in Delano, which has provided housing and support for retired Filipino farmworkers since 1974.
“He was one of the co-founders of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a labor union that later joined the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) to become what is known today as the United Farm Workers (UFW). During his years with AWOC, Philip and the other leaders made the decision to start Delano Grape Strike which was one of the most significant and well known strikes in the history of farmworker struggle in California. This strike is what eventually made the UFW. Philip Vera Cruz was the long standing second Vice President of the UFW until he retired in in 1997.”
“In the words of Philip Vera Cruz: ‘On September 8, 1965, at the Filipino Hall at 1457 Glenwood St. in Delano, the Filipino members of AWOC held a mass meeting to discuss and decide whether to strike or to accept the reduced wages proposed by the growers. The decision was "to strike" and it became one of the most significant and famous decisions ever made in the entire history of the farmworker struggles in California. It was like an incendiary bomb, exploding out the strike message to the workers in the vineyards, telling them to have sit-ins in the labor camps, and set up picket lines at every grower's ranch... It was this strike that eventually made the UFW, the farmworkers movement, and Cesar Chavez famous worldwide.’”
Filipino union members played key roles in the farmworker movement. Most of these men, respectfully known as Manongs, migrated to the United States in their teens and 20s. Racist laws in California at that time forbade them from marrying outside their race, so most remained single. Evicted from farm labor camps after joining the Delano Grape Strike in 1965, by the end of the strike in 1970 many Filipino men were without families, pensions, and places to live. In 1973 and 1974, the farm worker movement built the Paulo Agbayani Retirement Village. It provided some of Manongs with safe and comfortable housing, human dignity and respect in their final years. Hundreds of volunteer laborers constructed this complex. The village was named after a Filipino Manong who died of a heart attack on the picket line. The village provided residents with individual rooms, a community kitchen serving Filipino cuisine, a dining hall, living and recreation room, and garden. As the first affordable housing community built by what is now the Cesar Chavez Foundation, Agbayani Village served as a model for dozens of properties built across four states that continue providing affordable housing. The Chavez Foundation manages the property today, which still houses people.
located on 1660 Beverly Boulevard at Unidad Park, Sponsored by SPARC’s Neighborhood Pride Mural Program in 1995. On September 8th, 1965, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a majority Filipino labor group, initiated a strike against Delano grape growers amidst cries of “welga!” (the Tagalog word for “strike”). The purpose of the strike was to get union contracts, higher pay, and improved working conditions.
Untitled (Side with the Farmworker), ca. 1973, screenprint on computer tractor paper During the civil rights era, artists often used whatever materials they had at hand to craft public messages about pressing concerns. Here an unidentified artist emblazons a pro-labor message on recycled computer paper, calling for the boycott of Gallo Wines. Activists on college campuses were especially known for using this unconventional paper for their printmaking. The artist depicts a revolting rat, a symbol of nonunion workers who cross the picket line
Wilson High School student protester Peter Rodriguez at LAUSD Board of Education meeting. Photo by Los Angeles Public Library. In 1967, Mexican American students throughout the Southwest held a 60% high school dropout rate. If they did graduate, they averaged an 8th-grade reading level. Due to Anglo-centric internal school policies many Chicano students were fielded to vocational training or classes for the mentally disabled. Prejudice from teachers and administrators instigated stereotypes of Mexican Americans that discouraged the students from higher learning. These inequalities in education led to the 1968 East Los Angeles Walkouts, also known as the "Blowouts," which displayed the largest mobilization of Chicano youth leaders in Los Angeles history.
LOS ANGELES, CA - MARCH 12: Image originally published on March 13, 1968--Police struggle to arrest a female student at Venice High School during a clash with 1,000 students. She was accused of using obscene and abusive language. Eight people were arrested. March 1, 1968: Over 15,000 Chicanos, students, faculty, and community members, walk out of seven East L.A. high schools. Those schools included: Garfield, Roosevelt, Lincoln, Belmont, Wilson, Venice, and Jefferson High School. Some students from East L.A. junior high schools join the protests, as well
When he 15, Dr. Sanchez started the Young Chicanos for Community Action in Monterey Park, California. He later changed the name to the Brown Berets, because he had actually purchased one, by chance, and wore it often. From then on, the grassroots group met at various locations, including the Boy’s and Girl’s Club and coffee shops, because they didn’t want police to know their whereabouts. Dr. Sanchez, along with Carlos Montes, another organizer with the Brown Berets, began to take up causes such as police brutality, better education, and discrimination against the Latinx community. Their first protest was in 1967, when they picketed the sheriff's office in East L.A. to protest the killing of Latino men.
“Gloria Arellanes (left, second row) marches in a Robert Kennedy Requiem Memorial Procession the day after he was killed, from Belvedere Park to East Los Angeles College Stadium for a Catholic Mass. Brown Berets were security. (George Rodriguez)”. “At its peak, the Brown Berets had as many as 55 chapters throughout the country, including the Southwest but also in states such as Kansas and Minnesota. By 1970, however, the founding chapter was tearing at the seams. As the group planned demonstrations against the Vietnam War, female members began to question why they were largely excluded from leadership positions and relegated to behind-the-scenes, menial work.”
Undated photo strips show Gloria Arellanes, at left, and at center, with fellow Brown Beret members including, from clockwise: Lorraine Escalante, Hilda Reyes and Arlene Sánchez. (Special Collections & Archives, John F. Kennedy Memorial Library, Cal State LA, Gloria Arellanes Papers) Arrellanes became the minister of Finance & Correspondence after being apoitned by David Sánchez, the group’s founder. She was the only woman on the leadership team.
Rodriguez took this portrait of a Chicana demonstrator in the neighborhood of Lincoln Heights in 1969 Hilda’s Jenson’s photos has graced the covers of books, films etc, but often the names of her and her fellow women organizers have often gone unrecognized. In 2003 she wrote to filmmaker Jesús Salvador Treviño who had included her image in his memoir to identify her by name and include her maiden name: Hilda Reyes.
“After leaving the Brown Berets, Arellanes — along with Jensen and her sister, Grace; Andrea and Esther Sánchez; Lorraine Escalante; Yolanda Solis; and Arlene Sánchez — founded Las Adelitas de Aztlán. The name referred to the soldaderas who fought alongside the men during the Mexican Revolution. They invited members of the community to join them and on Feb. 28, 1970, they made their public debut at the second anti-war moratorium in East Los Angeles.” Members of Las Adelitas de Aztlán at the second Chicano Moratorium protest against the Vietnam War on Feb. 28, 1970. At right is Hilda Reyes. They marched in the rain under a banner made by Gloria Arellanes and other members of the group. Las Adelitas dissolved later that year.
“The National Chicano Moratorium Against the Vietnam War in East Los Angeles would become the biggest gathering of Mexican American demonstrators in U.S. history to that point, with about 20,000 people parading down Whittier Boulevard to what was then called Laguna Park — before widespread violence erupted when sheriff’s deputies stormed the park and skirmishes followed. Patrol cars and buildings were set on fire.”
Consuelo Flores Remembers, age 9 in 1970. She remembered smoke — tear gas, shot into the crowds. Untold numbers of protesters were injured by deputies or while fleeing. ‘I’m 9 years old, and I’m seeing the cop who’s supposed to protect me, whacking” a young man, she recalled. ‘My [red] shoes just fall off, and I just keep running, I’m running with my bare feet, so now my feet are burning too, and ... I’m just trying to get home.’
“Anyone who has worked a police beat as a reporter, as I have, knows that policemen tend to have difference attitudes toward enforcing the law depending on the social, financial and racial makeup of the people they deal with.” -Ruben Salazar Journalist Rubén Salazar and camera operator Guillermo Restrepo trailed after police who were chasing people east down Whittier Blvd. They eventually stopped at the Silver Dollar Bar and Café. That was where Los Angeles County deputy sheriff Tom Wilson said he fired the tear gas canister that struck Salazar in the head. Rubén Salazar was both the news director at Spanish language TV station KMEX and a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
Raul Ruiz lays a Mexican flag atop the corpse of Gustav Montag, during a 1971 protest in East Los Angeles. Three people died on Aug. 29, 1970 Moratorium. They included: LA Times journalist and KMEX (Ch. 34) news director Rubén Salazar, Gilberto Diaz (Angel Gilbert Diaz) and Lyn Ward. During a 1971 protest, Gustav Montag was murdered by police. Identified as Jewish, Montag was the fourth casualty in East LA of the organized moratoriums. This moratorium was held on February 2, 1971.
Chicano Moratorium Committee anti-war demonstrators gather in East L.A. "The biggest, bloodiest disturbance in Los Angeles since Watts five years earlier lasted several hours. When it was over, Los Angeles Times columnist Ruben Salazar was dead and two others mortally wounded, about 200 people were under arrest, 75 law enforcement officers and untold numbers of demonstrators were injured, 95 county vehicles were destroyed or damaged, 44 buildings were pillaged and eight major fires had been set.” “After the Chicano Moratorium, I said no way am I going to put myself in jeopardy ever again,” Jensen says. “Because that’s how scared I was.” Jensen stopped organizing
Harry Gamboa Jr.: LA County sheriffs open fired on innocent students and protestors, and wounded and killed many people who were protesting against the war in Vietnam, and were also protesting against police violence, which was followed by a two to three-and-a-half year crackdown on young people gathering on the streets of East Los Angeles. At the time that we shot [First Supper After a Major Riot], we felt that it had been long enough. It was time for it to be extinguished. And so, we declared it to be a celebration. Willie Herrón: At the time of the Moratorium, I was in high school. I remember the procession originating at Belvedere Park, protesting the Vietnam War and all the Chicanos that lost their lives. The police brutality was incredible. It affected me quite a bit and I think it affected all of us. So that's why Whittier Boulevard became such an important street, and a place for us to conduct our performances and connect them to our community and the way society viewed us at the time.
Stations of the Cross was a walking “ritual of resistance” against what the performance group Asco considered the “useless deaths” taking place in Vietnam. The male members of the group (which originally comprised Harry Gamboa Jr., Gronk, Willie Herrón III, and Patssi Valdez) paraded down Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles, with Herrón as a Christ/death figure bearing a large cardboard cross. The quasi-Passion Play ended with the trio blocking a U.S. Marines recruiting office with the cross, symbolically halting military recruitment from their Mexican American neighborhood.
1964: First Actions of the Survival of the American Indian Association On December 23rd, 1963, some of the soon-to-be founding members of the SAIA marched on the state capital in Olympia, carrying signs that read “No salmon – No santa.”The Governor invited them in, listened to their complaints, and sent them away with only a dismissive, “Nice to hear your problems. Come back again.” The Native Americans involved in this protest were among those most adversely affected by the active state enforcement of fishing regulations. Many had been arrested on multiple occasions by state officers, and their gear had been confiscated numerous times. After years of waiting, they were completely disillusioned with the tribal organizations’ slow and halting attempts to resolve the fishing rights dispute through negotiation and compromise with state authorities. They saw an immediate need for confrontation and direct action in order to force real changes. Read more
Native Americans and supporters stage fish-in to protest denial of treaty rights on March 2, 1964. On March 2, 1964, Native Americans protest the denial of treaty rights by fishing in defiance of state law. Inspired by sit-ins of the civil rights movement, Actor Marlon Brando (b. 1924), Episcopal clergyman John Yaryan from San Francisco, and Puyallup tribal leader Bob Satiacum (1929-1991) catch salmon in the Puyallup River without state permits. The action is called a fish-in and results in the arrest of Brando and the clergyman. Satiacum is not arrested. The Pierce County Prosecutor refuses to file charges and Brando and Yaryan are released. Whenever tribal members fished for salmon and steelhead trout off their tiny reservations, they were held subject to state law. State regulations prohibited the use of nets and traps even though these were traditional Native methods of taking fish from rivers and streams. Native Americans insisting on their rights guaranteed by Treaties signed by Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens (1818-1862), were subjected to arrest and prosecution. The right to fish became a unifying identity among the diverse tribes of Puget Sound, which traditionally were tied to natural resources rather than to real estate. The fish-in was staged by the National Indian Youth Council, a Native American civil rights organization formed in Gallup, New Mexico, in 1961. NIYC members participated in "freedom rides" and civil rights marches in Alabama and Mississippi, and applied their knowledge of activism and civil disobedience to tribal issues. Fish-ins were used throughout the 1960s to dramatize racial discrimination, pride in native heritage, and to assert treaty rights. In 1974, a Federal court ruled that the tribes were entitled to half the salmon in Western Washington.
1964: Police brutalize tribal fishermen in Washington State. Local police brutalize tribal fishermen on the Puyallup River at Frank’s Landing, near Tacoma, Washington. Hank Adams, spokesman for the Survival of American Indians Association, sends an open letter to incoming Washington governor Dan Evans, informing him that Frank’s Landing is being posted against trespassing and that an armed guard is being stationed to prevent opposition by police officers.
Three regional Alaska Native organizations—the Alaska Native Brotherhood, the Dena Nena Henash, and the Iñupiat Paitot—agree to affiliate. The new group expresses strong disagreement with the U.S. Secretary of Interior’s Alaska Task Force report on land claims and needs. “Citing the land recommendations as ‘inadequate,’ the Indian organization made a series of concise but far-reaching proposals of its own including changes in the current Native Allotment Act to allow securing several tracts of non-contiguous land, the need for leasing for native benefit reserved tribal lands and future withdrawals, and the need for Congress to define aboriginal land rights of the natives and to establish a forum in which their claims may be heard.” —Tundra Times, 1961
Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail, an Apsáalooke (Crow)/Lakota registered nurse, receives the President’s Award for Outstanding Nursing Health Care. In 1930, she began traveling to reservations across the U.S. to learn about the condition of Indian health and to advocate for political action. She witnessed the forced sterilization of Crow women. On the Navajo reservation, she found that gravely ill Navajo children were literally dying on the backs of their mothers, who walked 20 miles or more to reach the nearest hospital. These experiences inspired her to dedicate her life to fighting abuses in the Indian health care system.
On his last day of service in Vietnam in 1963, Harvey Pratt (Cheyenne and Arapaho) poses in Da Nang carrying his rappelling rope that he used to descend from helicopters to clear landing fields. Pratt is the designer of the National Native Americans Veterans Memorial. During the Vietnam War, more than 42,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives join the U.S. armed forces. Poor military record keeping may have undercounted the number. American Indians seek each other out and share dismay that stereotypes about Indians influence officers to send them out front during dangerous missions. The Vietnam Memorial lists 248 American Indians and Alaska Natives killed in action.
U.S. Secretary of Interior Walter J. Hickel, far left, meeting in Washington, D.C. with people involved in Native Alaska land claims disputes. From left to right: Tim Wallace, President Fairbanks Native Association; Charles Edwardsen, Executive Director Arctic Slope Native Association; Eben Hopson, Emil Notti; Attorney Barry Jackson (standing); State Senator William Hensley; and Alfred Ketzler. Farthest back on the right are State Senator Ray Christiansen and Frank Degnan. John Borbridge is seated in the foreground. A statewide conference of more than 400 Alaska Natives, representing several regional associations, establishes the Alaska Federation of Natives. Its purpose is to speak with a unified voice about land transfers, land claims, and resources development. The group pushes for a comprehensive settlement of all Alaska Native land claims, which comprise almost the state’s entire land mass.
The founding board of the American Indian Movement meets in Minneapolis. Left to right: Harold Goodsky, Charles Deegan, Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, Peggy Bellcourt, Mr. & Mrs. Barber, Rita Rogers (seated), George Mitchell, Mrs. Mellessy and daughter. A group of 200 Natives meet in Minneapolis to found the American Indian Movement, known as AIM. Growing out of the late 1960s civil rights era, its objective is to protect the rights of urban Indians. The U.S. government considers the group radical. “The American Indian Movement office was the place to stop by if you needed a ride, an emergency loan, leads on jobs, or a place to live. Social services and political action were integrated.”
President Lyndon Johnson calls for “termination” to be replaced by Indian “self-determination.” Congress passes the Indian Civil Rights Act “to ensure that the American Indian is afforded the broad constitutional rights secured to other Americans … [in order to] protect individual Indians from arbitrary and unjust actions of tribal governments.” “The Act is a highly controversial law because it authorizes federal courts to intervene in intra-tribal disputes, a power they never had before. Many Indians bitterly resent this development. Essentially, it does two things: First, it confers certain rights on all persons who are subject to the jurisdiction of a tribal government. Second, it authorizes federal courts to enforce many of these rights.”
In the summer of 1968, Native American activists Dennis Banks, George Mitchell, and Clyde Bellecourt gathered hundreds of like-minded individuals in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Armed with ultimate goal of forcing the United States to recognize Native American sovereignty, the activists formed the American Indian Movement group, or the AIM. As stated on AIM's official website, the American Indian Movement’s goals were: the recognition of Indian treaties by the United States government, among other goals such as sovereignty and the protection of Native Americans and their liberties. AIM has sought to accomplish these goals over the past five decades by bringing a multitude of successful lawsuits against the federal government with n the hopes of changing U.S. policy. Key events for the American Indian movement include the group’s formation in Minnesota in 1968, as well as the initial occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969. The movement also organized the “Trail of Broken Treaties” March, where protesters marched on Washington, D.C. Following the 1973 occupation by AIM leader Russell Means and his supporters at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, the AIM became an internationally known and recognized civil rights group. The New York Times even ran a story that reported on the vanishing number of Indians, as well as to their unfair treatment by the United States Federal government. In an Atlanta newspaper in 1973, Russel Means said that if the Indian voice isn’t heard among the U.S. government officials, “the situation…will evolve into a bigger and larger Wounded Knee.” It seems that Means was indeed correct, as an FBI officer was killed in a shootout with AIM at the Pine Ridge Reservation two years later.
A young brave from Nogales, New Mexico, at a Thanksgiving feast on Alcatraz Island on November 27, 1969. For Native American students at San Francisco State University and other schools around the Bay Area, the protests and strikes at University of California, Berkeley during the 1960s, were a glimpse into how political activism could begin to address the injustices Native people had long suffered. In meetings at San Francisco’s American Indian Center and Warren’s, a bar in the Mission District’s “Little Res,” a plan was hatched to take over Alcatraz Island, whose world-famous prison had recently been decommissioned and its land declared “surplus.” The siege of Alcatraz officially began on November 20, 1969, with two major goals — to agitate for Native American self-determination and sovereignty and to establish a Native American cultural center, museum and college on the island. In the 1960s, War Jack says, “just to identify yourself as a Native person would bring immediate discrimination and racism. [Alcatraz] helped us re-establish our self-identification as Native people. People developed pride.”
Overcoming exhaustion and disillusionment, Atha Rider Whitemankiller, Cherokee, stands before the press at the Senator Hotel in San Francisco after the removal of the last Indian occupiers from Alcatraz on June 11, 1971. His eloquent words about the purpose of the occupation of Alcatraz Island—to publicize his people’s plight and establish a land base for the Indians of the Bay Area—were the most quoted of the day.
A group of 78 Indians calling themselves Indians of All Tribes lands on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay and begins to occupy it in a demonstration for the rights of American Indians. Indians of All Tribes draws on powerful historic precedents of Native peoples taking a stand for the return of illegally taken lands, and they also usher in a new activist movement that draws attention with its mix of radicalism and American Indian traditionalism. “We moved onto Alcatraz Island because we feel that Indian people need a cultural center of their own. For several decades, Indian people have not had enough control of training their young people. And without a cultural center of their own, we are afraid that the old Indian ways may be lost. We believe that the only way to keep them alive is for Indian people to do it themselves.” —Letter from Indians of All Tribes, December 16, 1969
Poster stating that the U.S. government has forcibly taken back—“ripped off”—Alcatraz Island. “Hoka Hay!!” translates roughly as “It is Over.” The poster appeared in Berkeley, California on June 12, 1971, the morning after the removal of remaining occupiers from the island. A group of 78 Indians calling themselves Indians of All Tribes lands on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay and begins to occupy it in a demonstration for the rights of American Indians. Indians of All Tribes draws on powerful historic precedents of Native peoples taking a stand for the return of illegally taken lands, and they also usher in a new activist movement that draws attention with its mix of radicalism and American Indian traditionalism. “We moved onto Alcatraz Island because we feel that Indian people need a cultural center of their own. For several decades, Indian people have not had enough control of training their young people. And without a cultural center of their own, we are afraid that the old Indian ways may be lost. We believe that the only way to keep them alive is for Indian people to do it themselves.” —Letter from Indians of All Tribes, December 16, 1969
LaNada proposes cultural center on the first anniversary of their occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, California, 20th November 1970. The occupation was a 19-month long protest when 89 Native Americans and their supporters occupied Alcatraz Island from 20th November 1969 to 11th June 1971 when the United States Government forcibly ended the protest. (Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)
This is a photograph of Native American children playing on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. On November 20, 1969, 79 Native Americans, including six children, set out to occupy Alcatraz Island. The intention of the occupation was to gain Indian control over the island for the purpose of building a center for Native American Studies, an American Indian spiritual center, an ecology center, and an American Indian Museum.
Native American activist LaNada Means poses with an architect's model of a proposed cultural center on the first anniversary of their occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, California, 20th November 1970. The occupation was a 19-month long protest when 89 Native Americans and their supporters occupied Alcatraz Island from 20th November 1969 to 11th June 1971 when the United States Government forcibly ended the protest.
Native and Indigenous elders from throughout the country joined the young occupiers of Alcatraz Island for a meeting they said was the most important since the ‘Ghost Dance’ days of the 1880s. When, in 1956, the Bureau of Indian Affairs launched yet another assimilationist policy, the Indian Relocation Act, the intention was to further undermine Native communities by moving youth from Indian Reservations to urban centers throughout the West. Instead, the opposite occurred. Native people began, for the first time, to find support across tribal lines among the more than 100,000 relocated Indigenous people who shared similar histories of Indigenous identity and cultural survival… For Native American students at San Francisco State University and other schools around the Bay Area, the protests and strikes at University of California, Berkeley during the 1960s, were a glimpse into how political activism could begin to address the injustices Native people had long suffered. In meetings at San Francisco’s American Indian Center and Warren’s, a bar in the Mission District’s “Little Res,” a plan was hatched to take over Alcatraz Island, whose world-famous prison had recently been decommissioned and its land declared “surplus.” The siege of Alcatraz officially began on November 20, 1969, with two major goals — to agitate for Native American self-determination and sovereignty and to establish a Native American cultural center, museum and college on the island. In the 1960s, War Jack says, “just to identify yourself as a Native person would bring immediate discrimination and racism. [Alcatraz] helped us re-establish our self-identification as Native people. People developed pride.”
On November 20, 1969, a group of Native students landed on an uninhabited Alcatraz and reclaimed it as Indian Land, beginning nineteen months of occupation. Leaders included Richard Oakes, an Akwesasne Mohawk and Chair of the Native American student group from San Francisco State College and LaNada War Jack, a member of the Shoshone Bannock Tribes and Chair of the Native American students from UC Berkeley. Thousands of Native people from across the country joined the original group of 80 occupiers. The Indians of All Tribes demanded that the federal government recognize treaties with Indian tribes, they demanded a Native American cultural center, and they demanded that land be returned. As the Occupiers discussed their plans, they wrote messages of peace and freedom around the island as well as submitting formal proposals and architectural plans. You can see several of their messages and symbols recently restored here at the dock.
On Nov. 26, 1969, just before Thanksgiving Day Indians of All Tribes, issued the following press release indicating the seizure of Alcatraz Island. The 4-page press release reprinted by the Journal of American Indian Education in 1970 indicates that Alcatraz Island will be used for several Indian institutions including: 1. A Center for Native American Studies 2. An American Indian Spiritual Center 3. An Indian Center of Ecology 4. A Great Indian Training School 5. Creation of an American Indian Museum
In the fall of 1963 the ninth and tenth grades were revived. Sherman Indian High School re-opened enrollment to other tribes, including California Indian tribes. The school again moved in the direction of a high school program, adding a grade each year until the school began graduating classes in 1966. In 1967 eight buildings were deemed unable to withstand a major earthquake. One of the last buildings to be razed was the old school building in 1970. The old cornerstone from this building and its contents were saved and placed in Sherman Museum (old Administrative Building), the last of the original buildings. In 1971, Sherman was re-accredited as a high school, and became known as Sherman Indian High School. The museum houses records from the school’s early days to the present. Over 2,000 catalogued items or artifacts of American Indian origin are housed there. These items were acquired from friends of the school and museum. In 1974, the Sherman Indian Museum was designated as a Riverside Cultural Heritage Landmark. It was entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. At present day Sherman, the school hosts an average of 300 to 500 students who come from reservations spanning the United States. Any student who is a tribal member of a federally-recognized tribe with at least one-fourth blood quantum may apply to attend. The school is funded entirely by the United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Bureau of Indian Education. Attendance is free of charge. The reasoning behind leaving home to come to Sherman vary. Some students attend SIHS because they live too far away from school, back at home, to attend daily. Others attend SIHS because they had negative experiences attending non-Native schools, and more than a few attend SIHS simply due to it being a family tradition. Sherman enforced a Reduction In Force of employees in the spring of 2009, due to budget constraints. Approximately 34 employees were laid off. Despite this, Sherman faculty and staff still work to provide a safe, healthy and productive site for their Native American students.
Robert F. Kennedy and reporters with student in woodshop at Sherman Indian High School. In the fall of 1963 the ninth and tenth grades were revived. Sherman Indian High School re-opened enrollment to other tribes, including California Indian tribes. The school again moved in the direction of a high school program, adding a grade each year until the school began graduating classes in 1966. In 1967 eight buildings were deemed unable to withstand a major earthquake. One of the last buildings to be razed was the old school building in 1970. The old cornerstone from this building and its contents were saved and placed in Sherman Museum (old Administrative Building), the last of the original buildings. In 1971, Sherman was re-accredited as a high school, and became known as Sherman Indian High School. The museum houses records from the school’s early days to the present. Over 2,000 catalogued items or artifacts of American Indian origin are housed there. These items were acquired from friends of the school and museum. In 1974, the Sherman Indian Museum was designated as a Riverside Cultural Heritage Landmark. It was entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. At present day Sherman, the school hosts an average of 300 to 500 students who come from reservations spanning the United States. Any student who is a tribal member of a federally-recognized tribe with at least one-fourth blood quantum may apply to attend. The school is funded entirely by the United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Bureau of Indian Education. Attendance is free of charge. The reasoning behind leaving home to come to Sherman vary. Some students attend SIHS because they live too far away from school, back at home, to attend daily. Others attend SIHS because they had negative experiences attending non-Native schools, and more than a few attend SIHS simply due to it being a family tradition. Sherman enforced a Reduction In Force of employees in the spring of 2009, due to budget constraints. Approximately 34 employees were laid off. Despite this, Sherman faculty and staff still work to provide a safe, healthy and productive site for their Native American students.
Activists marching under the NWRO banner in the Poor People’s Campaign, Washington, D.C., May–June 1968. 1960s/70s Welfare activists were mostly working-class black and some white mothers, and the majority of them were themselves welfare recipients. As welfare recipients, women of color, and working-class people, they faced a wave of policies and ideologies that stigmatized them, policed their behavior, and made receiving benefits increasingly difficult. These policies were but one element of a larger political crisis, wherein the California government stoked racialized and gendered fears in order to shrink the welfare state. Rather than simply acquiesce to this reality, welfare-rights groups in California refused to accept it. In 1963, Johnnie Tillmon—a black single mother on welfare—decided to get in touch with fellow welfare recipients in Los Angeles. She was tired of enduring the stigma that came with being on welfare—and she did not want to endure it alone. She envisioned a group of welfare recipients that would support one another, exchange advice, and even pressure the California government for policy changes. In putting this group together, the first step was to find out who else was on welfare, or Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). “That was a hard job”, said Tillmon, “because that kind of information was not made public. We were in the housing project manager’s office one day when he was called to the phone. Instead of taking the call in his office, he took it from outside. While he was out, we started looking through the papers on his desk.” Among those papers was a list of neighborhood welfare recipients, and Tillmon “copied the names”. Soon after, she went door-to-door, spoke with neighbors in her housing project, and a group of welfare recipients began to form. This group came to be called Aid to Needy Children-Mothers Anonymous ([1], p. 18), or ANC-MA: one of many local welfare-rights groups across the country.
This photograph and these pins highlight the welfare rights movement, which emerged in the 1960s at the intersection of the black freedom movement, women’s liberation, and anti-poverty activism. Many participants were single women of color, and they fought against punitive social policies that prioritized paid labor over caregiving responsibilities and tied the receipt of public benefits to increased surveillance of their families. Fighting for the means to provide for their families and juggling the demands of work, childcare, and activism, these women offered an expansive vision of citizenship that remains unfulfilled to this day. ( Jeanne Gardner Gutierrez, Curatorial Scholar in Women’s History )Jack Rottier Photograph Collection, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University
Singing We Shall Overcome, this group of Freedom Summer volunteers begins its journey from Oxford, Ohio to Mississippi. Despite the dangers, more than 1,000 college students volunteered to canvass, teach and establish community centers.Photo: Ted Polumbaum, Newseum Collection - Photographer Herbert Randall no longer has the nightmares that haunted his sleep after a harrowing incident while documenting the 1964 civil rights initiative known as Freedom Summer. Fifty years later, Richard Momeyer believes there is still much to learn from the hundreds of volunteers — many of them white college students — who trained in Oxford before heading south to register black voters and set up freedom schools and community centers. An estimated 800 volunteers went through orientation training June 14-27 of that year at the Western College for Women, which is now part of Miami University's Western campus. Three civil rights activists — Michael Schwerner, 24, James Chaney, 21, and Andrew Goodman, 20 — were murdered in Mississippi soon after leaving Oxford. Their deaths stunned the nation and sparked a major federal investigation. It was code-named "MIBURN" for Mississippi Burning after their charred station wagon was found on June 23.
"Before 1965, it was perfectly legal in Louisiana to be denied voting rights if you had a child out of wedlock. Across the South, literacy tests, citizen tests, and poll taxes were common, designed explicitly to restrict Black and nonwhite Americans from voting. After the Civil War, the 15th Amendment prohibited denying men the right to vote based on their race, but it did not grant automatic voting rights (women had to wait another 50 years for the 19th amendment in 1920). While some men and women could and did vote, laws demanding certain requirements to be met in order to vote led to widespread disenfranchisement, leaving Black Americans in particular with very little say in how their communities were governed. Equal access to voting was a central focus of the early civil rights movement — "Give us the ballot, and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights," Martin Luther King Jr. said in a 1957 speech. The focus on voting rights sharpened after peaceful marchers demanding suffrage, led by John Lewis, were attacked by state troopers in Selma, Alabama."
Original Caption: PANTHER POWER---BLACK PANTHERS, TEENAGERS AND CHILDREN ALIKE, GIVE THE PANTHER BLACK POWER SALUTE OUTSIDE THEIR "LIBERATION SCHOOL" IN THE FILLMORE DISTRICT OF SAN FRANCISCO. DECEMBER 20, 1969. UPI B/W - By 1966, the civil rights movement had been gaining momentum for more than a decade, as thousands of African Americans embraced a strategy of nonviolent protest against racial segregation and demanded equal rights under the law. But for an increasing number of African Americans, particularly young Black men and women, that strategy did not go far enough. Protesting segregation, they believed, failed to adequately address the poverty and powerlessness that generations of systemic discrimination and racism had imposed on so many Black Americans. Inspired by the principles of racial pride, autonomy and self-determination expressed by Malcolm X (whose assassination in 1965 had brought even more attention to his ideas), as well as liberation movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the Black Power movement that flourished in the late 1960s and ‘70s argued that Black Americans should focus on creating economic, social and political power of their own, rather than seek integration into white-dominated society. Crucially, Black Power advocates, particularly more militant groups like the Black Panther Party, did not discount the use of violence, but embraced Malcolm X’s challenge to pursue freedom, equality and justice “by any means necessary.” Bettmann Archive/Getty ImagesPHOTOGRAPH.
From PBS: "Newton had been charged with 1st degree murder, assault and kidnapping in October 1967. This brought the Black Panther Party into international prominence and made Huey a revolutionary icon during 3 years of rallies & protests by tens of thousands of people across North America to "Free Huey". As Roger points out though, once Huey was released, a new problem was created: "Yeah they freed Huey. Then Huey came out and they wanted Huey to free them and I keep trying to tell the people, I say people, that's the true power of the people, you freed me, you freed Huey, now why don't you all go ahead and free yourself? But see, they can't do that can they? They can't do that cause the people always have to create what they call a leader and a leader is everything that the people want to be but the leader is everything that the people can never be so then when the leader fails, he's gonna fail, he's just flesh and blood, he's gonna fail, when the leader fails then the whole construction of the concept of leadership fails and then it just becomes a matter of contempt. And that's when they assassinate you and then put your image on a postage stamp so they can keep lickin' you in the grave."
Malcolm X The inspiration behind much of the black power movement, Malcolm X’s intellect, historical analysis, and powerful speeches impressed friend and foe alike. The primary spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964, he traveled to Mecca that year and returned more optimistic about social change. He saw the African American freedom movement as part of an international struggle for human rights and anti-colonialism. After his assassination in 1965, his memory continued to inspire the rising tide of black power.
As biographer Peniel E. Joseph writes in Stokely: A Life, the events in Mississippi “catapulted Stokely into the political space last occupied by Malcolm X,” as he went on TV news shows, was profiled in Ebony and written up in the New York Times under the headline “Black Power Prophet.” Carmichael’s growing prominence put him at odds with King, who acknowledged the frustration among many African Americans with the slow pace of change, but didn’t see violence and separatism as a viable path forward. With the country mired in the Vietnam War, (a war both Carmichael and King spoke out against) and the civil rights movement King had championed losing momentum, the message of the Black Power movement caught on with an increasing number of Black Americans. King and Carmichael renewed their alliance in early 1968, as King was planning his Poor People’s Campaign, which aimed to bring thousands of protesters to Washington, D.C., to call for an end to poverty. But in April 1968, King was assassinated in Memphis while in town to support a strike by the city’s sanitation workers as part of that campaign. In the aftermath of King’s murder, a mass outpouring of grief and anger led to riots in more than 100 U.S. cities. Later that year, one of the most visible Black Power demonstrations took place at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, where Black athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised black-gloved fists in the air on the medal podium. By 1970, Carmichael (who later changed his name to Kwame Ture) had moved to Africa, and SNCC had been supplanted at the forefront of the Black Power movement by more militant groups, such as the Black Panther Party, the US Organization, the Republic of New Africa and others, who saw themselves as the heirs to Malcolm X’s revolutionary philosophy.
PHOTO BY NIKKI ARAI - Oakland High School students participated in the funeral for Black Panther Bobby Hutton, killed by Oakland Police in 1968. The Black Power movement, led by various groups including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Nation of Islam, and the Black Panther Party, emerged in the latter half of the sixties. Coined by Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael, the Black Power movement inspired racial pride and advocated for local community control, self-determination and economic development. At the same time, other social movements challenged the existing social order. At UC Berkeley, students engaged in civil disobedience over a university ban on political activity and initiated the Free Speech movement. The women’s liberation movement emerged in the late ‘60s as organizations formed to confront society’s sexism and to promote women’s equality. Likewise, activists organized the environmental movement to protect the earth, stop pollution, and clean-up toxic environmental hazards in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. Each of these movements, as well as their militancy, informed the Asian American movement.
As biographer Peniel E. Joseph writes in Stokely: A Life, the events in Mississippi “catapulted Stokely into the political space last occupied by Malcolm X,” as he went on TV news shows, was profiled in Ebony and written up in the New York Times under the headline “Black Power Prophet.” Carmichael’s growing prominence put him at odds with King, who acknowledged the frustration among many African Americans with the slow pace of change, but didn’t see violence and separatism as a viable path forward. With the country mired in the Vietnam War, (a war both Carmichael and King spoke out against) and the civil rights movement King had championed losing momentum, the message of the Black Power movement caught on with an increasing number of Black Americans. King and Carmichael renewed their alliance in early 1968, as King was planning his Poor People’s Campaign, which aimed to bring thousands of protesters to Washington, D.C., to call for an end to poverty. But in April 1968, King was assassinated in Memphis while in town to support a strike by the city’s sanitation workers as part of that campaign. In the aftermath of King’s murder, a mass outpouring of grief and anger led to riots in more than 100 U.S. cities. Later that year, one of the most visible Black Power demonstrations took place at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, where Black athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised black-gloved fists in the air on the medal podium. By 1970, Carmichael (who later changed his name to Kwame Ture) had moved to Africa, and SNCC had been supplanted at the forefront of the Black Power movement by more militant groups, such as the Black Panther Party, the US Organization, the Republic of New Africa and others, who saw themselves as the heirs to Malcolm X’s revolutionary philosophy.
"On July 4, 1964, the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) wrote a letter to the Vietnamese Front of National Liberation congratulating them on their “victories against U.S. imperialism.” They expressed their commitment to creating “a new world free from exploitation of man by man,” and explained their rejection of U.S counter revolutionary measures against their Third World brothers. Eighteen months later, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) issued a statement opposing the Vietnam War, exposing that the U.S. hid behind the discourse of democracy and freedom to undermine the sovereignty and self-determination of racialized people throughout the Global South and in the United States. Given this deception and hypocrisy, SNCC offered its support to those who refused to be drafted into the service of U.S. imperial aggression, and encouraged Americans to put their energy toward the struggle for civil and human rights, instead of the propagation of war and suffering."
First Published in 1936 - There were 224 businesses listed in the Los Angeles section of the Green Book from 1939-1967. These sites of sanctuary play a critical role in revealing the story of African American travel and represent the struggle and the triumph of finding a warm meal and a safe place to rest. The fact that we have these buildings as physical evidence of racial discrimination is a rich opportunity to re-examine America’s troubled history of segregation, black migration and the rise of the black leisure class. The majority of the Green Book sites are gone, but listed below are some properties that are still standing in Los Angeles. Click on each site for more information.
"The Greensboro Four were four young Black men who staged the first sit-in at Greensboro: Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil. All four were students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College. They were influenced by the nonviolent protest techniques practiced by Mohandas Gandhi, as well as the Freedom Rides organized by the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) in 1947, in which interracial activists rode across the South in buses to test a recent Supreme Court decision banning segregation in interstate bus travel. The Greensboro Four, as they became known, had also been spurred to action by the brutal murder in 1955 of a young Black boy, Emmett Till, who had allegedly whistled at a white woman in a Mississippi store."
The Greensboro Four were four young Black men who staged the first sit-in at Greensboro: Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil. All four were students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College. They were influenced by the nonviolent protest techniques practiced by Mohandas Gandhi, as well as the Freedom Rides organized by the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) in 1947.
Newton was arrested on the day of the shooting on October 28, 1967, and pled not guilty to the murder of officer John Frey. The Black Panther Party immediately went to work organizing a coalition to rally behind Newton and champion his release. In December the Peace and Freedom Party, a majority white anti-war political organization, joined with the Black Panther Party in support of Newton.[42] This alliance served the dual purpose of legitimizing Newton's cause while boosting the credibility of the party within the community of more radical activists.[43] Under the leadership of the Black Panther Party and the Peace and Freedom Party, 5,000 protesters gathered in Oakland on Newton's birthday, February 17, 1968, in support of Newton. They garnered the attention of international news organizations, raising the profile of the party by astounding measures. The phrase "Free Huey!" was adopted as a rallying cry for the movement, and it was printed on buttons and T-shirts. Prominent Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver claimed the goal of the Free Huey! campaign was to elevate Newton as a symbol of everything the Black Panther Party stood for, creating something of a living martyr.[44] The trial, which began on July 15, quickly ascended beyond the scope of Newton himself, evolving into a racially-charged political movement. Over the two year course of Newton's original trial and two appeals, the coalition continued to offer its support until the charges were overturned and Newton was released on August 5, 1970.
Anne Moody endures harassment from a crowd of whites at a Woolworth’s in Jackson, Miss. "In 1963, Moody became infamous in Mississippi after she challenged racial segregation in what would be the era’s most violent lunch-counter sit-in. At the Woolworth’s in Jackson, Mississippi, white men shoved Moody off her stool, dragged her across the floor by her hair and, when she crawled back, smeared her with ketchup, sugar and mustard. Photographer Fred Blackwell captured a now-iconic image of this day, with Moody seated in the middle. In the early 1960s, Moody worked tirelessly as an organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality in Canton, Mississippi. But after facing daily death threats, she fled to the North, where she moved from city to city, raising money for the movement. At each stop, she described what it was like to come of age, as a black woman, in Mississippi. At one, she shared a stage with baseball great Jackie Robinson, who urged her to write down her story. So she did.""
Three African American Civil Rights protesters and Woolworth's Sit-In, Durham, NC, 10 February 1960, as part of a series of protests that led to the end of legal segregation. From the N&O Negative Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC. Photos taken by The News & Observer, COPYRIGHT N&O. Illegal to use or public without expressed permission from The News & Observer newspaper, Raleigh, NC.
"Very few non-violent civil disobedience tactics of the late 1950s and early 1960s were as brilliantly simple in conception and as effective in execution as the sit-ins that rocked cities and towns from Texas and Oklahoma to Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina and beyond. Some sit-ins at lunch counters, state houses and other public and private venues were more confrontational than others; some lasted longer than others; some were more high-profile than others. But all required a certain kind of courage and a communal willingness to sacrifice that were hallmarks of the Civil Rights Movement in America." - Ben Cosgrove, LIFE
Murase, who completed his undergraduate degree in 1970, said he had few opportunities to learn about Asian Americans in the classroom. In response, he and five other UCLA students established Gidra in 1969, a monthly newspaper that highlighted and commented on Asian American issues while also enabling local artists and writers to share their work. Gidra was initially established at Campbell Hall as an Asian American student publication, Murase said. As Gidra’s influence began to extend beyond UCLA following its early publications, Murase said he and his peers moved their operations to a rented office on Jefferson Boulevard – about five and a half miles from UCLA – and accepted submissions from the larger community, including those who lived outside of Los Angeles or were not of Asian descent. Through the work of its volunteer staff and contributors, Gidra produced a total of 60 issues before its closure in 1974, Murase added. Coming of age in the 1960s, Asian American students at universities developed a new, distinct consciousness as Asian Americans shaped by the racial and international context of the time. By 1968, when the Asian American population numbered about 1.3 million, 80 percent of Japanese Americans and about 50 percent of Chinese Americans and Filipino Americans, respectively, were born in the United States. Asian Americans had come to reach the same educational attainment as whites, but still earned substantially less because of racial discrimination. For example, in 1960 Filipinos earned only 61 percent of the income of whites with comparable educations. Japanese and Chinese also earned less than their white counterparts, making 77 percent and 87 percent, respectively. Among the 107,366 Asian American college students on university campuses in 1970, Chinese and Japanese made up the vast majority, with over eight out of ten Asian American students being of either Japanese or Chinese American descent.
"It was 1960 in Beverly Hills and Lena Horne had had enough. The world renowned singer and actress was trying to enjoy an evening out with her husband when a man at the next table began making racial slurs. According to Horne, the man, an engineering executive named Harvey St. Vincent, looked Horne up and down and said, “So that’s Lena Horne, huh? Well, she’s just another black nigger to me. All niggers look alike to me, and there ain’t nothing they can do for me.” Horne was outraged. She told him to stop. When St. Vincent continued his tirade, Horne picked up an ashtray and threw it at him. Then she threw dishes. And a hurricane lamp. St. Vincent escaped mostly unscathed, save for a small cut above his left eye. Horne was unrepentant. “I really don’t like to make scenes like that,” she said, “but sometimes people push you too far.” Fans began filling Horne’s mailbox with letters of support. St. Vincent claimed the attack was unprovoked. But Horne’s manager, Ralph Harris had no doubt about what had gone on. “She’s the most wonderful woman I have ever known,” he said. “If she did it, he had it coming.” - Mike Davis, Jon Wiener
Civil Rights Movement: Firemen turn hoses on demonstrators, Birmingham, Alabama - IRMINGHAM, Ala., May 3 -- Fire hoses and police dogs were used here today to disperse Negro students protesting racial segregation. Three students were reported to have been bitten and to have required hospital treatment. Two firemen and a news photographer were injured by bricks and broken bottles thrown from the top of a Negro office building near the major encounter, at 17th Street and Fifth Avenue North. [In Washington, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy warned that ``increasing turmoil'' would be made inevitable by a refusal to grant equal rights to Negroes, United Press International reported. But he questioned the timing of the demonstrations.] Marchers Are Dispersed This was the second day of major demonstrations by the students here. Yesterday, more than 900 students were sent out from the Negro section in groups of 10 to 50. Some succeeded in reaching City Hall and several downtown corners. More than 700 were arrested. Today, with the dogs and fire hoses, the police were largely successful in dispersing the student marchers before they left the Negro section. Fewer than 500 were able to leave the 16th Street Baptist Church before the police sealed its doors. Only two groups won their way through the police lines. One group of 20 reached City Hall, where they were arrested. Another group of 10 got as far as the bus depot on 19th Street, where they also were taken into custody. In all, more than 250 persons were reported arrested today. The demonstrators today appeared to be older than those who marched yesterday. They appeared to be mostly high school and college students. All the demonstrations were held between 1 and 3 P.M. They followed by less than three hours a declaration by the two principal leaders of the month-old direct action campaign against segregation here. The leaders said that the demonstrations would continue with increasing intensity until there were both ``promise and action'' from the city authorities and white merchants to start to end segregation. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Atlanta, Ga., and the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, head of the local affiliate, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, made the announcement. They told the news conference that they had no intention of relaxing the pressure without such action. ``We are ready to negotiate,'' Dr. King said. ``But we intend to negotiate from strength. If the white power structure of this city will meet some of our minimum demands, then we will consider calling off the demonstrations, but we want promises, plus action.'' Both said there was no lack of recruits from among the Negro community of 140,000 persons here. If there ever was any division within it over the timing of the campaign, it now has disappeared, they declared.
In 1961, Davidson joined a group of Freedom Riders on the bus ride to Mississippi as both a participant and photographer. His images showcase the Civil Rights movement from the front lines, depicting those struggling for justice and equality amid protesting and police violence. Davidson photographed many facets of this era, from the Freedom Rides to the 1963 March on Washington and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March.
Civil Rights Movement: Firemen turn hoses on demonstrators, Birmingham, Alabama - IRMINGHAM, Ala., May 3 -- Fire hoses and police dogs were used here today to disperse Negro students protesting racial segregation. Three students were reported to have been bitten and to have required hospital treatment. Two firemen and a news photographer were injured by bricks and broken bottles thrown from the top of a Negro office building near the major encounter, at 17th Street and Fifth Avenue North. [In Washington, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy warned that ``increasing turmoil'' would be made inevitable by a refusal to grant equal rights to Negroes, United Press International reported. But he questioned the timing of the demonstrations.] Marchers Are Dispersed This was the second day of major demonstrations by the students here. Yesterday, more than 900 students were sent out from the Negro section in groups of 10 to 50. Some succeeded in reaching City Hall and several downtown corners. More than 700 were arrested. Today, with the dogs and fire hoses, the police were largely successful in dispersing the student marchers before they left the Negro section. Fewer than 500 were able to leave the 16th Street Baptist Church before the police sealed its doors. Only two groups won their way through the police lines. One group of 20 reached City Hall, where they were arrested. Another group of 10 got as far as the bus depot on 19th Street, where they also were taken into custody. In all, more than 250 persons were reported arrested today. The demonstrators today appeared to be older than those who marched yesterday. They appeared to be mostly high school and college students. All the demonstrations were held between 1 and 3 P.M. They followed by less than three hours a declaration by the two principal leaders of the month-old direct action campaign against segregation here. The leaders said that the demonstrations would continue with increasing intensity until there were both ``promise and action'' from the city authorities and white merchants to start to end segregation. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Atlanta, Ga., and the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, head of the local affiliate, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, made the announcement. They told the news conference that they had no intention of relaxing the pressure without such action. ``We are ready to negotiate,'' Dr. King said. ``But we intend to negotiate from strength. If the white power structure of this city will meet some of our minimum demands, then we will consider calling off the demonstrations, but we want promises, plus action.'' Both said there was no lack of recruits from among the Negro community of 140,000 persons here. If there ever was any division within it over the timing of the campaign, it now has disappeared, they declared.
The Free Breakfast for School Children Program was a community service program run by the Black Panther Party. Inspired by contemporary research about the essential role of breakfast for optimal schooling, the Panthers would cook and serve food to the poor inner city youth of the area. Initiated in January 1969 at St. Augustine's Church in Oakland, the program became so popular that by the end of the year, the Panthers setup kitchens in cities across the US, feeding more than 10,000 children every day before they went to school. Bobby Seale believed that "no kid should be running around hungry in school," a simple credo that lead FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to call the breakfast program, "the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for. source
"In the early morning hours of Dec. 8, 1969, Bernard Arafat awoke to explosions rocking the library of the Black Panthers’ 41st and Central Avenue headquarters in Los Angeles. Above him, footsteps stomped across the roof. Then gunfire erupted. Arafat wasn’t a seasoned Panther. He was a 17-year-old runaway from juvenile hall whose parents had both died when he was 13. After years of committing small-time crimes, Arafat was taken in by the Panthers and gained a sense of purpose. He helped with the organization’s breakfast program, feeding hungry kids on their way to school. Arafat had never fired a gun. But as he listened to the sound of bullets and heard the screams of his fellow Panthers, he made a decision. “I found an automatic shotgun and defended myself.” Arafat didn’t know it then, but he was part of an experiment in policing. On that morning 50 years ago, the Panthers became the targets of the world’s first major raid by a Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT, team. More than 350 officers took on 13 Panthers, ostensibly to execute arrest warrants. The group they battled included three women and five teenagers." - Matthew Fleischer, LA Times
As biographer Peniel E. Joseph writes in Stokely: A Life, the events in Mississippi “catapulted Stokely into the political space last occupied by Malcolm X,” as he went on TV news shows, was profiled in Ebony and written up in the New York Times under the headline “Black Power Prophet.” Carmichael’s growing prominence put him at odds with King, who acknowledged the frustration among many African Americans with the slow pace of change, but didn’t see violence and separatism as a viable path forward. With the country mired in the Vietnam War, (a war both Carmichael and King spoke out against) and the civil rights movement King had championed losing momentum, the message of the Black Power movement caught on with an increasing number of Black Americans. King and Carmichael renewed their alliance in early 1968, as King was planning his Poor People’s Campaign, which aimed to bring thousands of protesters to Washington, D.C., to call for an end to poverty. But in April 1968, King was assassinated in Memphis while in town to support a strike by the city’s sanitation workers as part of that campaign. In the aftermath of King’s murder, a mass outpouring of grief and anger led to riots in more than 100 U.S. cities. Later that year, one of the most visible Black Power demonstrations took place at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, where Black athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised black-gloved fists in the air on the medal podium. By 1970, Carmichael (who later changed his name to Kwame Ture) had moved to Africa, and SNCC had been supplanted at the forefront of the Black Power movement by more militant groups, such as the Black Panther Party, the US Organization, the Republic of New Africa and others, who saw themselves as the heirs to Malcolm X’s revolutionary philosophy.
Children at the Black Panthers’ free breakfast program, 1971. “This is one of the biggest and baddest things we ever did,” Jennings said. “And it’s still functioning across America … That’s what a vanguard party does. We set examples for people to follow.” Though the breakfast program is the most famous of the party’s Survival Programs, more than 60 others directly addressed the needs of the black community that were being systematically ignored.
Newton was arrested on the day of the shooting on October 28, 1967, and pled not guilty to the murder of officer John Frey. The Black Panther Party immediately went to work organizing a coalition to rally behind Newton and champion his release. In December the Peace and Freedom Party, a majority white anti-war political organization, joined with the Black Panther Party in support of Newton.[42] This alliance served the dual purpose of legitimizing Newton's cause while boosting the credibility of the party within the community of more radical activists.[43] Under the leadership of the Black Panther Party and the Peace and Freedom Party, 5,000 protesters gathered in Oakland on Newton's birthday, February 17, 1968, in support of Newton. They garnered the attention of international news organizations, raising the profile of the party by astounding measures. The phrase "Free Huey!" was adopted as a rallying cry for the movement, and it was printed on buttons and T-shirts. Prominent Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver claimed the goal of the Free Huey! campaign was to elevate Newton as a symbol of everything the Black Panther Party stood for, creating something of a living martyr.[44] The trial, which began on July 15, quickly ascended beyond the scope of Newton himself, evolving into a racially-charged political movement. Over the two year course of Newton's original trial and two appeals, the coalition continued to offer its support until the charges were overturned and Newton was released on August 5, 1970.
"Testing for sickle cell anaemia, Late 1960s or Early 1970s, Oakland, California. As Fred Hampton is often quoted as saying in an undated speech, “First you have free breakfasts, then you have free medical care, then you have free bus rides, and soon you have FREEDOM!” The Black Panthers’ emphasis on providing community health services grew out of a deep distrust in minority communities towards the traditional health care system, which they saw as potentially dangerous to themselves and their families"
Healthcare services were coupled with other social services at the PFMCs, as shown on this flyer from 1970 advertising Los Angeles’s Alprentice Bunchy Carter clinic. The equipment necessary to operate the PFMCs was begged, borrowed, purchased, scavenged, and sometimes just appeared on the doorstep.136 Businesses, churches, and other organizations provided financial support for the Party’s health programs. Pharmaceutical companies donated drugs to the Black Panther clinics in Oregon.137 Corporate donations were similarly an important source of support for the Seattle chapter.138 Kupers, who helped shape the Los Angeles chapter’s Bunchy Carter People’s Free Medical Clinic, and Small sought donations from medical supply and pharmaceutical companies on behalf of the Panthers
Original Caption: PANTHER POWER---BLACK PANTHERS, TEENAGERS AND CHILDREN ALIKE, GIVE THE PANTHER BLACK POWER SALUTE OUTSIDE THEIR "LIBERATION SCHOOL" IN THE FILLMORE DISTRICT OF SAN FRANCISCO. DECEMBER 20, 1969. UPI B/W - By 1966, the civil rights movement had been gaining momentum for more than a decade, as thousands of African Americans embraced a strategy of nonviolent protest against racial segregation and demanded equal rights under the law. But for an increasing number of African Americans, particularly young Black men and women, that strategy did not go far enough. Protesting segregation, they believed, failed to adequately address the poverty and powerlessness that generations of systemic discrimination and racism had imposed on so many Black Americans. Inspired by the principles of racial pride, autonomy and self-determination expressed by Malcolm X (whose assassination in 1965 had brought even more attention to his ideas), as well as liberation movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the Black Power movement that flourished in the late 1960s and ‘70s argued that Black Americans should focus on creating economic, social and political power of their own, rather than seek integration into white-dominated society. Crucially, Black Power advocates, particularly more militant groups like the Black Panther Party, did not discount the use of violence, but embraced Malcolm X’s challenge to pursue freedom, equality and justice “by any means necessary.” Bettmann Archive/Getty ImagesPHOTOGRAPH.
Bill Whitfield serving free breakfast to children in April 1969. The Panthers' breakfast program started in January 1969 at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Oakland. Ruth Beckford-Smith, a parishioner who taught Haitian dance at the church, volunteered to be one of the program’s co-organizers. Eleven children ate at St. Augustine’s on the first day. By the end of the year, the organization fed 20,000 kids in 19 cities across the country in the morning before they went to school.
Panthers serving children free breakfast, Sacred Heart Church, San Francisco. Between 1969 and 1971, the Panthers established 36 breakfast programs across the country from Kansas City to New York City. It’s estimated that over time, the Panthers fed 50,000 across the country through their program. "The Panthers are feeding more kids than we are," one US government official reportedly admitted. With each mouth fed, it became increasingly difficult for government officials like Hoover to portray the Panthers in a negative light.
Boys eat during a free breakfast in New York, winter 1969. Their work ultimately inspired amendments to the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 and served as the blueprint for establishing the government’s School Breakfast Program as a permanent program in 1975. According to the Food Research and Action Center, on average 13.2 million children received a free meal through that program each day during the 2013-'14 school year
A Panther serving breakfast to a group of youngers. Billy X Jennings, a former Panther who now serves as the party’s archivist, worked at the original breakfast program at St Augustine’s. “Every office was required to send two people to learn how it ran so you can open one in your area,” he said. Jennings would work at St Augustine’s early in the morning before heading to class at Laney College. Soon after, the breakfast service expanded to 23 locations around Oakland
"Predating the Stonewall Riots by ten years, Cooper Do-nuts was the site of a 1959 protest against the LAPD's harrassment of the gay and transgender clientele frequenting the shop. Due to Cooper&Do-nuts' proximity to several gay and lesbian establishments, a case of resisting arrest evolved into a full-scale riot that is remembered as the first open act of LGBTQ resistance toward police abuse in the United States."
"The Cooper Donut Riots Althought the facts vary, and the mere existance of an uprising has come into question, the narrative of the Cooper Do-nuts Riot stands is as follows: The Cooper Do-nuts Riot was a response to the routine harassment of LGBTQ people by the police in Los Angeles in the late 1950s. The uprising began when two police officers attempted to arrest two drag queens, two male sex workers, and a gay man. One of those arrested protested the lack of room in the police car and onlookers began throwing assorted coffee, donuts, cups, and trash at the police until they fled in their car without making the arrests. People then took to rioting in the streets and police backup arrived blocking off the street for the entire night and arresting several people. The Cooper Do-nuts uprising is often believed to be the first gay uprising in the United States. Although these events are little remembered today, they contextualize the fight for LGBTQ rights and remind us that this struggle was not limited to one city or even one event. The Cooper Do-nuts riot and many other events helped pave the way for Stonewall and for all of the victories since. It stands to reason that each individual will have to determin for themselves, given the facts we have to date, whether or not the uprising itself even occurred. And only time will tell what truly lands in the history books. "
"...Cooper’s Do-Nuts uprising right here in Los Angeles. Main Street was a popular hub for LGBTQ+ people, and Cooper’s Do-Nuts was a 24 hour welcoming space for trans folx in a city that otherwise targeted those who had IDs and driver’s licenses with gender markers that didn’t match their gender presentations. The fact that Cooper’s was a space where trans women, drag queens, and gender diverse people could congregate, made it a target for police and arrests.LA law at the time dictated that if your gender presentation did not match the gender on your ID you would be taken to jail and LGBTQ people were subject to campaigns of entrapment, intimidation and violence. As a result, many gay bars banned or actively discouraged trans and/or visibly gender diverse people from attending in order to avoid attracting attention and being targeted by raids. There were rules that you must wear at least three items of clothing that match your legal gender.One evening in May of 1959, the police attempted to arrest several patrons including two drag queens, two male sex workers and a gay man. As those arrested attempted to fight back, protesting their unjust arrest onlookers from Cooper’s Do-Nuts decided enough was enough, and a group consisting of transwomen, lesbians, drag queens and gay men, spilled out onto the street in support and threw coffee cups, donuts and trash at the police until they were forced to retreat without their detainees. Backup was called and a night of rioting ensued. That night is widely considered to be the first gay uprising in modern history, seven years before the Black Cat Riot in L.A.’s Silverlake neighborhood, and ten years before the Stonewall Rebellion." - by William Grant Still Arts Center
"the Los Angeles Police Department often targeted LGBT people through entrapment, intimidation, and violence. Police specifically targeted trans people, arresting those whose perceived gender did not match their driver’s license. Several gay bars, in an attempt to remain inconspicuous and avoid police raids, banned or discouraged transgender people from entering. However, Cooper’s Donuts, which opened in 1959 in the Skid Row neighborhood, was welcoming to the transgender community. The shop served policemen during the day and, as the patrols dwindled in the evening, opened its doors to trans people and those barred from other establishments. One evening, two police officers asked for ID cards from some customers at the shop — a typical way for them to harass LGBT people. Those who were picked out of the crowd, including John Rechy, an accomplished gay author who has written about the uprising, were “two hustlers, two queens and a young man just cruising.” Something snapped in one of them; enough was enough. He objected to the car being packed with five people and fought back, leading the customers at the donut shop to flood into the streets, throwing coffee cups, trash, spoons, donuts, anything they could get their hands on. “[The officers] fled into their car,” Rechy writes, “called backups and soon the street was bustling with disobedience. Gay people danced about the cars.” The officers returned with reinforcements, Main Street was closed, and history was made. However, the importance of the Cooper’s Donuts uprising was not recognized until much later. Mark Thompson, a social historian who lived in the same neighborhood as Rechy, writes of the event’s importance: “I would not describe it as a riot but more like an isolated patch of local social unrest that had lasting repercussions. I think less in its day, more as a lesson for us today. L.A. is such a huge, sprawling city (even back then) so what happened in one district probably did not register elsewhere — especially when issues of class and race are factored in.” Not too much is known about the uprising at Cooper’s Donuts, and as time passes, fewer of the storytellers of the time are around to share their experiences. But it is important to remember that the fight for LGBT rights was not limited to one city and one event. The Cooper’s Donuts uprising, like the Compton Cafeteria riots, the Dewey’s sit-ins, and the Independence Hall protests, helped pave the way for Stonewall and for all the victories the community has seen since." - Christiana Lilly
"Fagots Stay Out,” a misspelled sign over the bar at Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood read since the 1940s. The founder of Barney’s Beanery, John “Barney” Anthony installed the sign. It wasn’t until nearly 30 years later when LGBT community leaders such as Rev. Troy Perry and Gay Liberation Front founder Morris Kight pressured the new owner, Irwin Held to take the sign down. But he refused, saying that the sign “didn’t mean anything.” After persistent protestors, the sign briefly came down in 1970 — but then it went back up along with several more signs. The signs permanently came down in early 1985. At the time, West Hollywood had just become its own incorporated city and had adopted anti-discriminatory ordinance. Held would face large fines if he didn’t remove the signage"
"Barney’s Beanery has a history of hostility toward gays. Barney’s Beanery has a complicated history in West Hollywood. The greasy spoon with its multicolored booths and license plates on the walls was a legendary hangout for rockers and movie stars — the place where Janis Joplin is said to have had her last drink before she died, where Jim Morrison was a rowdy regular and where Quentin Tarantino has a favorite table. The gritty roadhouse also has long exasperated West Hollywood’s large gay community. For years, a sign hung over the bar blaring “Fagots Stay Out” in big, bold letters, and a former owner sold matchbooks with the same misspelled slogan"
The first L.A. Pride Parade (originally Gay Pride Parade), organized by Rev. Bob Humphries (founder, United States Mission), Morris Kight (founder, Gay Liberation Front) and Rev. Troy Perry (founder, Metropolitan Community Church) and the Christopher Street West Association, was held on June 28, 1970 in Los Angeles. L.A.'s Gay Pride Parade permit did not come easily. No city had, until that time, ever experienced thousands of LGBTQ people marching openly and LAPD Chief Edward Davis did not hesitate to remind organizers that homosexuality was still illegal in California. Rev. Perry recounted that Davis declared to them, “As far as I’m concerned, granting a permit to a group of homosexuals to parade down Hollywood Boulevard would be the same as giving a permit to a group of thieves and robbers.” The Los Angeles Police Commission, for their part, claiming to fear violent homophobic counter-reactions, imposed excessive permit requirements, such as $1.5 million in fees. Parade organizers and the ACLU challenged the city in court, taking their fight all the way to the California Supreme Court. The court ended up ordering the city to issue a parade permit without discriminatory add-ons. L.A.’s Gay Pride Parade became the world’s first officially-permitted parade advocating for LGBTQ rights. The parade was moved from Hollywood in Los Angeles to West Hollywood in 1979.
"Marsha P. Johnson is seen at the Gay Liberation Front demonstration at City Hall in NYC". "After the Stonewall rebellion in June 1969, the first LGBT activist organization formed was the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), in July. GLF used Alternate U., a free counterculture school and leftist political organizing center in Greenwich Village, for many of its activities through 1970. The building was demolished in 2019, becoming the second loss of an LGBT historic site ."
In the 1950s and 60s, transgender people were afforded little to no safety or rights. Compton’s Cafeteria in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco was one of the few places transgender people could congregate safely. Because cross-dressing was illegal in California, Compton’s staff used this as the pretext to call police to crack down on transgender people in the cafe. In response, the trans community organized a picket of Compton’s Cafeteria. When police were called to break up the protest, violence erupted. As one of the first publicized instances of violence against trans people, the Compton’s Cafeteria Riots sparked awareness of mistreatment and the creation of a wide network of support services for transgender people. Hundreds of gay rights activists protest the "diminished capacity" verdict against former Supervisor Dan White for the double assassination of Mayor George Moscone and the city's first openly gay Supervisor, Harvey Milk at Sheridan Square in New York's Greenwich Village section, Tuesday night, May 22, 1979. The demonstrators gathered before a police station then marched to the square, calling on Mayor Koch to state where he stands on protection for "his lesbian and gay constituences." One sign reads, "Stop Police Brutality Against Lesbians and Gay Men." (AP Photo) .
“In 1966, three years before the world-famous Stonewall riot in New York, a group of trans women in San Francisco stood up to police inside Gene Compton’s Cafeteria, an all-night restaurant in the Tenderloin neighborhood and popular queer gathering spot. A trans woman fed up with the harassment and abuse is said to have thrown a cup of coffee in an officer’s face, sparking a chaotic riot and unprecedented moment of trans resistance to police violence. “These ladies took the bullets for us,” said Personna, a performer and activist who went to Compton’s Cafeteria as a teenager in the 1960s and now lives down the street. “Everyone in our community stands on their shoulders.” As LGBT people across the US celebrate the 50th anniversary of Stonewall this month, trans community organizers in San Francisco are fighting to cement the legacy of their own groundbreaking riot – and have officially designated the world’s first-ever “trans cultural district” in the Tenderloin. The cultural district is also mobilizing to protect black trans women from displacement, as the San Francisco neighborhood rapidly gentrifies.”
"No one knows the exact date of the Compton’s Cafeteria riot. In fact, if it wasn’t for Dr Susan Stryker, the event might have been almost entirely forgotten. The trans historian was rifling through the Gay and Lesbian Historical Society archives in 1991 when she stumbled on a timeline of historic events that referenced an August 1966 event: “Drag queens protest police harassment at Compton’s Cafeteria”. The file included almost no additional information, and Stryker was determined to find out more. “There’s a story here that I need to tell,” she recalled in a recent interview in a coffee shop on San Francisco’s bustling Market Street, not far from the building where she first made that discovery. It took Stryker years to figure out what happened. A city archivist told her there were no arrest reports, that the “records have been disappeared”. So she slowly built her own paper trail and learned how the corner of Turk and Taylor streets, where Compton’s was located, was “trans central”. Eventually, she met Amanda St Jaymes, a trans woman who had lived in a hotel in the area and was present at the riot"
Established in 1966, the Personal Rights in Defense and Education (PRIDE) group set out to combat police harassment of homosexuals and provide a social outlet for gay men in Los Angeles. Founded by Steve Ginsburg, co-chair of the 1973 Gay Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco, the gay rights organization existed for only two years but made a profound and lasting impact. On Feb. 11, 1967, PRIDE organized a peaceful demonstration protesting the Los Angeles Police Department’s raid of the Black Cat Tavern, a gay bar in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles. Undercover vice squad officers beat and arrested gay male patrons on the evening of Dec. 31, 1966, for openly engaging in the traditional New Year’s Eve kiss. PRIDE’s action in response to the Black Cat Tavern incident was one of the earliest organized gay rights demonstrations in the United States. Two years later, the Stonewall Riots, a series of spontaneous demonstrations protesting police raids at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, would usher in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and transgender/transsexual (LGBTQ) rights movement. Prior to the police raid on the Black Cat Tavern, PRIDE published a single-page monthly newsletter that would become The Los Angeles Advocate. The original newsletter provided legal advice and printed an updated list of gay-friendly bars in the Los Angeles area. The Los Angeles Advocate would later evolve into the oldest and largest LGBTQ publication in the United States. Now known simply as The Advocate, the publication still runs monthly and covers the LGBTQ community. PRIDE also created a small instructional booklet called The Pocket Lawyer for people to carry in the event that they were arrested for homosexual conduct. The booklet made clear an individual’s right to refuse to make a statement or to give personal information, such as employment.
Troy Perry in L.A.'s first Pride parade, 1970. In 1968, after a suicide attempt, and witnessing a close friend being arrested at The Patch Bar, Perry felt called to return to his faith and to offer a place for gay people to worship God. Perry put an advertisement in The Advocate announcing a worship service designed for gays in Los Angeles. Twelve people turned up on October 6, 1968 for the first service, and "Nine were my friends who came to console me and to laugh, and three came as a result of the ad." After six weeks of services in his living room, the congregation shifted to a women's club, an auditorium, a church, and finally a theater. In 1971, their own building was dedicated with over a thousand members in attendance.
"The Patch Bar was the site of the 1968 arrest of two gay men that inspired the LGBTQ bar patrons and the venue's owner, Lee Glaze, to stage a peaceful "flower power" protest in the Harbor Division Police Station. The unique sit-in was characterized by the act of protestors buying large bouquets of flowers and holding them while occupying the police lobby. Glaze had been warned repeatedly by the LAPD that in order to legally stay in business, he was required to prohibit drag queens, prevent men from dancing together, and refuse to allow more than one person at a time to enter the bar bathrooms. At this time, homosexuality was effectively illegal in California, as was any form of dressing that did not match one's assigned gender in the eyes of the law. As a result, undercover police vice squads often targeted the gay and lesbian bars of Los Angeles, raiding the establishments and subjecting patrons to harassment and arrest on exaggerated charges. "
These widely circulated LGBT newspapers provided an unprecedented level of information about what was happening locally, as well as across the country, that was of interest to LGBT persons. The development of LGBT media also greatly expanded social networking opportunities beyond what had been possible during preceding decades. In turn, the emergence of LGBT media and opportunities to market directly to a more open community provided the basis for an explosion of LGBT-owned businesses during the period (including real estate firms, accountants, doctors, bookstores, retail shops, discotheques, bathhouses, and nightclubs).
Rebels with a cause: SDS beginnings The lunch counter sit-ins inspired a generation of young white people towards activism. SDS recognizes the connection between racism, poverty, war, imperialism etc. One of the groups that emerged was SDS 1962: SDS Convention at Port Huron, Michigan - AY 1965-66: SDS chapter organized at Valley College by small group Valley State SDS organized one of the 1st campus demonstrations against recruiters for Dow Chemical, manufacturer of napalm. Organized against the draft, resulted in students walkout (~200) Protested scheduled campus visit of CIA recruiter
Sal Castro, a teacher at Lincoln High, talks to students in 1968. Castro was arrested for his leadership role in the East L.A. walkouts. “Historically, the series of Chicano Youth Leadership Conferences (CYLC) are the most recognized high school leadership conferences in California…CYLC was founded in 1963 in response to the harsh reality that Chicano students fared last in education, dropout rates exceeded any other ethnicity, and the likelihood of Chicanos attending a college or university was very low. CYLC brought together groups of high school students at Camp Hess Kramer with the primary objective of encouraging the student participants to graduate from high school, enter college, graduate and seek advanced degrees to become responsible leaders. This has been ongoing for over four decades.”
LOS ANGELES, CA - MARCH 12: Image originally published on March 13, 1968--Police struggle to arrest a female student at Venice High School during a clash with 1,000 students. She was accused of using obscene and abusive language. Eight people were arrested. March 1, 1968: Over 15,000 Chicanos, students, faculty, and community members, walk out of seven East L.A. high schools. Those schools included: Garfield, Roosevelt, Lincoln, Belmont, Wilson, Venice, and Jefferson High School. Some students from East L.A. junior high schools join the protests, as well
Third World Liberation Front Strike picket line at San Francisco State University, 1969. Photo courtesy of Asian American Movement 1968. The Third World Liberation Front Strikes of 1968-69 were a defining moment for the burgeoning Asian American movement. At San Francisco State, AAPA (which was mostly limited to Japanese, in practice if not in theory), Intercollegiate Chinese for Social Action, and the Pilipino-American Collegiate Endeavor came together to form the “Asian contingent” of the student-led strike. From November 1968 to March 1969—the longest student strike in U.S. history—Asian American, Black, Chicano, and Native students clashed with administrators, and occasionally police, to establish an ethnic studies department and increase the number of students and faculty of color at the school. A second strike took place at UC Berkeley from January to March 1969.
“William H. Parker, who headed the LAPD from 1950 to 1966, is considered the originator of the warrior cop policing style.(Los Angeles Times) The LAPD’s racial animus during this time is often attributed to the bigotry of its chief. Parker was a cartoonish racist who likened Black people to monkeys and thought Latinos inherently criminal due to their descent from what he called the “wild tribes” of Mexico. He once complained during a television news interview that an influx of African Americans moving to L.A. to escape the Jim Crow South had “flooded a community that wasn’t prepared to meet them. We didn’t ask these people to come here.” According to Kramer, Parker was a punch-below-the-belt politician who maintained his authority in part by spying on his adversaries and threatened them with the dirt he uncovered. Yet he wasn’t some rogue white supremacist who slipped through the cracks into his position. Parker enjoyed strong support from L.A.’s white business leaders and homeowners. Even after the brutality of his department drew national scrutiny in the wake of the 1965 Watts riots, Parker’s white base of support rallied around him. It took death, not outrage, to finally remove him from his position in 1966, after which city leaders changed the name of LAPD headquarters to honor him — and kept it there until 2009. Parker’s LAPD, much like other problematic police departments across California, was possible only because of the support of the white power structure. And that power structure wanted residential segregation. L.A.’s powerful real estate industry, as detailed in Andrea Gibson’s “City of Segregation,” did everything it could to enforce and profit from segregation. According to Gibson, the industry furthered the myth that Black and Latino integration was bad for property values, thus ensuring a premium on homes in white communities, while simultaneously imposing artificial scarcity in segregated ones, driving up prices for jam-packed residents of color who were prevented from living elsewhere.”
This March 1968 photo provided by the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, protesters in a car drive by with a sign that reads "Get the Cops Out of the Schools Now!" during a walkout by students at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles. Participants of a 1968 Los Angeles high school walkout over dropout rates, paddle beatings for speaking Spanish and other issues . (Devra Weber/La Raza Photograph collection/UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center via AP)
Police violence was often the match that ignited urban riots in the ’Sixties. In July 1964, Harlem sank into chaos after a veteran police lieutenant shot dead a 15-year-old black male. In Newark in 1967, the arrest and beating of a black cab driver led to an angry protest outside the police station, which morphed into several days of burning, looting, and police and civilian casualties. Detroit’s fateful 1967 riot that claimed 43 lives and shut down the city began with a police raid on a party and the decision to detain and transport dozens of revelers. The Lyndon Johnson administration responded to the riots by calling for programs that would attack the root causes of poverty and despair in the cities. He said his War on Poverty was also a War on Crime. Richard Nixon ran campaign ads featuring scenes from the riots and promising to impose order.
A man is taken into custody by police in Detroit, Michigan in July 1967. Police raided a party at an illegal drinking club. Police arrested everyone in attendance, including 82 Black people who were celebrating the return of two Black veterans from the Vietnam War. During the nine days that followed, 9,000 members of the National Guard were once again deployed by Michigan Governor George Romney, along with 800 members of the state police force. Some 7,200 people were arrested, 1,200 were injured and 43 were killed (33 of them Black). Between 1964 and 1971, more than 700 race riots took place in the US
Movements such as the Black Panthers were criminalised by law enforcement agencies. The FBI viewed the Black Panther Party as a communist enemy of the government due to its “militancy”, the message of Black nationalism and determination to end police brutality, and used its power to crack down on it hard. FBI head J Edgar Hoover declared war on the Black Panther Party and called them “one of the greatest threats to the nation’s internal security”. The group soon became the target of a secret FBI counterintelligence programme COINTELPRO. This culminated in 1969 with a five-hour police shoot-out at the Panthers’ Southern California headquarters and a Chicago police raid where the Black Panthers’ Illinois chapter deputy chairman, Fred Hampton, who had been identified by the FBI as a “radical threat”, was murdered on December 4.
"Ten thousand marchers, by most estimates, were assembling across the street from the Century City hotel. Hundreds of nightstick-wielding police — using a parade permit and court order that restricted the marchers from stopping to demonstrate — forcibly dispersed them. The bloody, panicked clash that ensued left an indelible mark on politics, protests and police relations. It marked a turning point for Los Angeles, a city not known for drawing demonstrators to marches in sizable numbers. The significance of the evening lay not simply in the 51 people who were arrested and the scores injured when 500 of the 1,300 police on the scene pushed the demonstrators into, and then beyond, a vacant lot that is now the site of the ABC Entertainment Center. Far more powerfully, the Century Plaza confrontation foreshadowed the explosive growth of the national antiwar movement and its inevitable confrontations with police."
"The power of George Jackson's personal story remains painfully relevant to our nation today, with its persistent racism, its hellish prisons, its unjust judicial system, and the poles of wealth and poverty that are at the root of all that. I hope the younger generation, black and white, will read Soledad Brother." —Howard Zinn, author, A People's History of the United States A collection of Jackson's letters from prison, Soledad Brother is an outspoken condemnation of the racism of white America and a powerful appraisal of the prison system that failed to break his spirit but eventually took his life. Jackson's letters make palpable the intense feelings of anger and rebellion that filled black men in America's prisons in the 1960s. But even removed from the social and political firestorms of the 1960s, Jackson's story still resonates for its portrait of a man taking a stand even while locked down.
"George L. Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo and John W. Clutchette became known as the Soledad Brothers, their case catching the Nation’s attention and turning heads to look deeper into the United States’ prisons, when the three men were falsely accused of murdering a prison guard in retaliation for the murder of three prisoners at Soledad Prison in January of 1970. The Soledad Brothers Defense Committee was created with support of many people on the outside including Angela Davis, a well-known professor at the University of California, Los Angeles at the time. The Soledad Brother’s case received its height of visibility on August 7th, 1970 when Jonathan Jackson, the younger brother of George Jackson took over the Marin County Courthouse, taking hostages in exchange for the Soledad Brothers freedom. Jonathan Jackson and all but one hostage in his possession were killed by police on the scene only moments after leaving the courthouse. Ruchell Magee, one of the prisoners that joined in on the takeover, was the only survivor. Following the incident, Angela Davis was indicted and imprisoned for conspiracy in the takeover when it was revealed that the guns used in the takeover were registered under her name. The national coverage that the Soledad Brothers were receiving skyrocketed after the Marin Courthouse takeover, drawing the nation’s attention to the injustices of the criminal justice system."
n important figure that rose to prominence out of this movement and with the help of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, is that of George Jackson, who arguably became face of the prisoners’ movement. Jackson’s prominence rose with his induction into the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and his writings about race, revolutionary political thought, and the injustices of the prison system.
Movements such as the Black Panthers were criminalised by law enforcement agencies. The FBI viewed the Black Panther Party as a communist enemy of the government due to its “militancy”, the message of Black nationalism and determination to end police brutality, and used its power to crack down on it hard. FBI head J Edgar Hoover declared war on the Black Panther Party and called them “one of the greatest threats to the nation’s internal security”. The group soon became the target of a secret FBI counterintelligence programme COINTELPRO. This culminated in 1969 with a five-hour police shoot-out at the Panthers’ Southern California headquarters and a Chicago police raid where the Black Panthers’ Illinois chapter deputy chairman, Fred Hampton, who had been identified by the FBI as a “radical threat”, was murdered on December 4.
The welfare mothers movement in Los Angeles can be traced to 1963 and the founding of the ANC Mothers Anonymous of Watts. Initially it had little connection with the larger women's movement, and its members did not view themselves as part of that movement. Later, after the formation of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), and especially after Johnnie Tillmon took the helm of the national organization, this changed. The turning point might well have been the publication of her 1972 Ms Magazine article, "Welfare is a Woman's Issue." By 1979 and the International Women's Conference in Houston, women of color and poor women had become a visible presence in the larger women's movement (which ranged from reformist groups like NOW to radical feminists) and were making their voices heard and their issues public. At the present time, there is only one interview included in the "Welfare Mothers" series: the oral history of Johnnie Tillmon, one of the founders and leaders of the ANC Mothers Anonymous of Watts. Hopefully, an oral history of Ardelphia Hickey, another key person in the ANC mothers group, might be conducted eventually. It should also be noted that Alicia Escalante, the founder of the ELA Welfare Rights group (later named Chicana Welfare Rights Organization) was interviewed for a Ph.D. dissertation at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
This photograph and these pins highlight the welfare rights movement, which emerged in the 1960s at the intersection of the black freedom movement, women’s liberation, and anti-poverty activism. Many participants were single women of color, and they fought against punitive social policies that prioritized paid labor over caregiving responsibilities and tied the receipt of public benefits to increased surveillance of their families. Fighting for the means to provide for their families and juggling the demands of work, childcare, and activism, these women offered an expansive vision of citizenship that remains unfulfilled to this day. ( Jeanne Gardner Gutierrez, Curatorial Scholar in Women’s History )Jack Rottier Photograph Collection, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University
On October 29, 1966, the Nation Organization for Women officially adopted their Statement of Purpose. The statement, written by Betty Friedan and Pauli Murray, expressed the organization’s main goals in addressing and fighting the unequal treatment of women in society. This 1966 document is a seminal part of the modern women’s rights movement and played an important role in inspiring more Americans to fight for gender equality. Although their Statement of Purpose was adopted in October, the feminist organization was officially founded on June 30, 1966. The statement described NOW’s purpose as “To take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men.” NOW was created when its founders recognized that women needed a pressure group to combat gender discrimination, as the government agencies and recent laws to address this problem had proven ineffective. A prime example of this was the failure of the Equality Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Secondly, NOW was also influenced by the failure of John F. Kennedy’s 1961 President’s Commission on the Status of Women, headed by Eleanor Roosevelt, to end discrimination against females in education, the workforce and Social Security. The movement was also inspired by Friedan’s 1963 book “The Feminine Mystique,” where she famously expresses her stultifying experiences as a housewife lacking other options in society beyond that domestic role. NOW broke with previous trends for women’s organizations by including the concerns of black women in their mission. NOW has advocated for many issues they see as necessary for ensuring equality for women, including maternity leave rights in employment, child day care centers, equal job training opportunities, reproductive rights, and the prohibition of sex discrimination in the workplace.
Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act establishes affirmative action programs, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender, creed, race, or ethnic background: "to achieve equality of employment opportunities and remove barriers that have operated in the past" (Title VII). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is also established through Title VII to prevent job discrimination. The Bracero Program, the government program initially put in place during WWII, ends. It brought Mexican laborers into the country to replace the American men who were fighting overseas. When the war ended the program continued.
How has the theory and practice of nonviolence shaped social movements in the United States and across the world? How can nonviolent movements confront the challenges facing us today? Join Rev. James Lawson, Jr. and UCLA Labor Center Director Kent Wong for a 10-week course offered free to the public. In a series of conversations with prominent movement leaders, Rev. Lawson explores the development of nonviolent strategy in efforts to overturn segregation in the U.S. and Apartheid in South Africa, win rights for workers and immigrants, and contest mass incarceration.
“Jane Crow and the Law: Sex Discrimination and Title VII” was written by Pauli Murray and Mary Eastwood in 1965. It was published by the George Washington University Law Review in response to the Civil Rights Act, which had been passed the year before in 1964, and it questions the extent to which the Constitution protects against gender discrimination, and the “interpretation of the sex discrimination provisions of the equal employment opportunity title of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg later read the article at the American Civil Liberties Union to convince the Supreme Court that the Equal Protection Clause does indeed apply to women.
"Founded in Los Angeles in the late 1960s, the Brown Berets were an influential community-based social justice organization that played a leading role in the Chicano Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. “The Brown Berets were originally formed as the Young Citizens for Community Action in 1966 and were active in Los Angeles’ Eastside neighborhoods. The name was changed to Young Chicanos for Community Action in 1967. Members wore brown berets as a symbol of unity and resistance, which inspired the organization’s third name. The Brown Berets took on a range of social and political issues that plagued the Mexican American and Chicanx barrios of the Eastside in various sectors of life, including educational inequality, healthcare access, police brutality, and wartime casualties. They were active predominantly in the unincorporated area of East Los Angeles, though they also had a strong presence in Lincoln Heights and Boyle Heights. In addition to their successful marches and rallies one of the Brown Berets' most important accomplishments was the establishment of El Barrio Free Clinic on Whittier Boulevard in 1969.”"
“Gloria Arellanes (left, second row) marches in a Robert Kennedy Requiem Memorial Procession the day after he was killed, from Belvedere Park to East Los Angeles College Stadium for a Catholic Mass. Brown Berets were security. (George Rodriguez)”. “At its peak, the Brown Berets had as many as 55 chapters throughout the country, including the Southwest but also in states such as Kansas and Minnesota. By 1970, however, the founding chapter was tearing at the seams. As the group planned demonstrations against the Vietnam War, female members began to question why they were largely excluded from leadership positions and relegated to behind-the-scenes, menial work.”

Contents of this tag:

Predating the Stonewall Riots by ten years, Cooper Do-nuts was the site of a 1959 protest against the LAPD's harassment of the gay and transgender clientele frequenting the shop. Due to Cooper Do-nuts' proximity to several gay and lesbian establishments, a case of resisting arrest evolved into a full-scale riot that is remembered as the first open act of LGBTQ resistance toward police abuse in the United States. BY CHRISTIANA LILLY: "the Los Angeles Police Department often targeted LGBT people through entrapment, intimidation, and violence. Police specifically targeted trans people, arresting those whose perceived gender did not match their driver’s license. Several gay bars, in an attempt to remain inconspicuous and avoid police raids, banned or discouraged transgender people from entering. However, Cooper’s Donuts, which opened in 1959 in the Skid Row neighborhood, was welcoming to the transgender community. The shop served policemen during the day and, as the patrols dwindled in the evening, opened its doors to trans people and those barred from other establishments."-
im Lawson, pioneering expert on nonviolence and teacher to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis, led civil rights workshops simulating violent reactions of white people at lunch counters. This was to train the nonviolent resisters not to react with violence. Lawson also discusses the importance of discipline in nonviolent movements: "You cannot go on a demonstration with 25 people doing whatever they want to do. They have to have a common discipline… The difficulty with nonviolent people and efforts is that they don’t recognize the necessity of fierce discipline and training, and strategizing, and planning, and recruiting, and doing the kind of things you do to have a movement. That can’t happen spontaneously. It has to be done systematically." Lawson is the voice in the video, the facilitator of the workshop, and the person interviewed at the end. This clip taken from "A Force More Powerful", an excellent documentary on the history of nonviolent movements, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpBoH....