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

Free Huey

Huey P. Newton, in full Huey Percy Newton, (born February 17, 1942, Monroe, Louisiana, U.S.—died August 22, 1989, Oakland, California), American political activist, cofounder (with Bobby Seale) of the Black Panther Party (originally called Black Panther Party for Self-Defense). An illiterate high-school graduate, Newton taught himself how to read before attending Merritt College in Oakland and the San Francisco School of Law. While at Merritt he met Seale. In Oakland in 1966 they formed the Black Panther group in response to incidents of alleged police brutality and racism and as an illustration of the need for Black self-reliance. At the height of its popularity during the late 1960s, the party had 2,000 members in chapters in several cities. In 1967 Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of a police officer. His imprisonment sparked protests—and the popular rallying cry “Free Huey.” His conviction was overturned in 1970, and he was released from prison. In 1971 he announced that the party would adopt a nonviolent manifesto and dedicate itself to providing social services to the Black community, which included free meals for children and health clinics. In 1974 Newton was accused of another murder and fled to Cuba for three years before returning to face charges; two trials resulted in hung juries.

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1. 1969 Free Breakfast Program 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
6. FBI Wanted Poster Angela Davis, Black Panther Party, American, 1966 - 1982
8. 1969 UCLA philosophy department hired Angela Davis
10. 1969 Bunchy Carter and John Huggins murdered on UCLA Campus https://dailybruin.com/2019/01/17/throwback-thursday-fifty-year-anniversary-of-bunchy-carter-john-huggins-shooting - The two Black Panther leaders were members of the Black Student Union, as well as a part of the High Potential Program, a program meant to increase opportunities in higher education for minority students. Tension between the Black Panthers and the US Organization was at the heart of the shooting. The US Organization and the Panthers were, at the time, vying for control of black student organizations at the collegiate and high school level. Simultaneously, the FBI was attempting to stoke tensions between the two groups through efforts that included its largely illegal surveillance program, COINTELPRO. In January 1969, the two groups backed different individuals for the role of director of the newly created Afro-American Center, now known as the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies. The US Organization put forward a black psychologist with minimal background in academia as its choice. Chancellor Charles Young initially was willing to accept the choice, until a dispute arose over salary. Then, BSU announced it had reservations and wanted a different candidate, one with both an academic background and commitment to the black community. On Friday, Jan. 17, 1969, about 150 BSU members met in Campbell Hall to talk about the qualifications for the director. After the adjournment of the meeting, Harold “Tuwala” Jones entered the room and Huggins confronted him about the harassment of a fellow Panther. As a fight broke out between the two, Carter tried to intervene. Then Claude “Chuchessa” Hubert came in and shot Huggins in the back. Huggins, who was armed, fired a couple of shots back as he fell, wounded. Carter attempted to find cover behind a chair but was also shot by Hubert. “Chuchessa shot through the chair and killed him instantly,” recalled J. Daniel Johnson, a student who was present in the room, in 2008. In seconds, it was all over and two men were dead. After the shooting, university police worked in 12-hour shifts until Wednesday, Jan. 22. Police issued a bulletin announcing George Stiner and Larry Stiner as suspects, after witnesses had identified them at the scene of the shooting. George Stiner, who was also a BSU member and a part of the High Potential program, surrendered to police on Monday afternoon. His younger brother Larry surrendered later that night. The brothers eventually received life sentences based on charges of conspiracy to commit murder. Hubert, the suspected murderer of the two men, was never caught. In its private communications, the FBI reacted to the murders with some satisfaction. “It would appear that the above activity will even further split the factions of the US Group and the BPP,” reads a memo from an FBI special agent in charge office in San Diego dated Jan. 20. Chancellor Young issued two statements following the incident. “Personally we are deeply grieved by the death of these two young men who were our students,” his first statement said. “The tragic events of last Friday have in no way diminished our resolve to offer broader educational opportunities on this campus,” he added in the second statement. Reactions from campus members were generally somber. “They were doing well, they were capable and potential leaders … it was a terrible thing,” said Thomas Robischon, a faculty advisor to the High Potential Program. Unsurprisingly, most students the Bruin reached out to, especially black students, did not want to speak to the paper so soon after the shooting. According to the an article from Jan. 21, white students largely wanted to keep themselves out of the matter, with their reaction being summed up by student Mike Shatzkin, in quintessential 60s fashion: “It’s none of my dad-gummed business.” Huggins’ body was sent to his family in New Haven, Connecticut, while the funeral for Carter was held on Jan. 24. Among those in attendance were James Baldwin and Kathleen Cleaver. The campus community quickly recovered following the incident, with BSU resuming meetings on Jan. 31. The High Potential Program resumed classes on the Tuesday after the shooting. Half a century later, the program still lives on. UCLA consolidated it with the Educational Opportunity Program in 1971 to create the Academic Advancement Program. The AAP currently serves over 5,000 students from underrepresented groups at UCLA. And Campbell Hall still serves as the hub for this program. But for years after the shooting, there was no marking or sign to denote that such an incident had taken place in Campbell Hall. But the shooting hasn’t completely dropped out of the student body’s collective memory. Since 1999, family and friends of Carter and Huggins, and other students have gathered annually at Campbell Hall to remember the two. In 2010, students hung a plaque in front of Room 1201 in honor of them. And students have called regularly for Campbell Hall to be renamed Carter-Huggins Hall. So far, UCLA administration has ignored such requests. After all, they were just activists, not rich megadonors filling UCLA’s coffers. So for now, the stone in front of Campbell Hall will continue to memorialize Carter and Huggins. -
12. 1969 John Huggins and Bunchy Carter, two LA Black Panthers, murdered on campus at UCLA
14. 1969 Free Breakfast Program 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.
15. Free Breakfast Program 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.
16. Free Breakfast Program 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
17. Free Breakfast Program 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
18. Free Breakfast Program 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.
19. Health Clinics "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"
20. Health Clinics "Boston’s Franklin Lynch PFMC, located in a trailer parked on a city street. Clinics varied by chapter and according to each chapter’s resources. This mission was frequently manifested as activist-run no-cost or low-cost clinics, such as the Panthers’ PFMCs. Consistent with the period’s anti authoritarian zeitgeist, activists encouraged patients to have a voice in the medical encounter and urged laypeople to claim the mantle of expertise by taking a hand in their healthcare—and, sometimes, in producing medical knowledge as well. The democratization of both medical practice and biomedical knowledge, often in the clinic setting, was a tactical cornerstone of radical health politics"
21. Health Clinics
22. Health Clinics "A flyer announces the opening of the Bobby Seale PFMC in Berkeley in April 1971. With the formal establishment of a national network of PFMCs, health politics came to have an integral role in the Party’s plan to “serve the people, body and soul.” The plan to expand the clinic program was first announced by the Party’s minister of education Ray “Masai” Hewitt at a press conference in the fall of 1969. PFMCs were launched as early as 1968 in several cities, including Kansas City, Missouri; Chicago; and Seattle, with Portland following suit in 1969. The Los Angeles chapter’s Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter Clinic, located in the Watts neighborhood, opened in late December 1969. Soon after the clinic mandate was handed down, Panther clinics were launched in New York, Cleveland, Boston, Winston-Salem, and Philadelphia"
23. Health Clinics 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
24. Free Huey Huey P. Newton, in full Huey Percy Newton, (born February 17, 1942, Monroe, Louisiana, U.S.—died August 22, 1989, Oakland, California), American political activist, cofounder (with Bobby Seale) of the Black Panther Party (originally called Black Panther Party for Self-Defense). An illiterate high-school graduate, Newton taught himself how to read before attending Merritt College in Oakland and the San Francisco School of Law. While at Merritt he met Seale. In Oakland in 1966 they formed the Black Panther group in response to incidents of alleged police brutality and racism and as an illustration of the need for Black self-reliance. At the height of its popularity during the late 1960s, the party had 2,000 members in chapters in several cities. In 1967 Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of a police officer. His imprisonment sparked protests—and the popular rallying cry “Free Huey.” His conviction was overturned in 1970, and he was released from prison. In 1971 he announced that the party would adopt a nonviolent manifesto and dedicate itself to providing social services to the Black community, which included free meals for children and health clinics. In 1974 Newton was accused of another murder and fled to Cuba for three years before returning to face charges; two trials resulted in hung juries.
26. 1969 Black Panther LA Headquarters SWAT Raid
27. 1969 John Huggins and Bunchy Carter, two LA Black Panthers, murdered on campus at UCLA
28. 1969 LAPD launched assault on the LA Black Panther headquarters "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
29. 1969 Los Angeles, Police officers hold two members of the Black Panther Party under arrest
30. 1970 Stokely: A Life 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.
32. 1970s Flier for "The Struggle for National Democracy in the Philippines" 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.
33. Black Panther Party Service to the People Programs
34. Black Panthers from Sacramento, Free Huey Rally 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."
35. Free Huey Rally 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.
36. PANTHER POWER 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.
38. The Black Panther Party
39. 1968 Eldridge Cleaver addresses an estimated 7,500 students at UCLA
40. 1966 Stokely Carmichael defines "black power" at the University of California's Greek Theatre in Berkeley
41. 1966 Stokely Carmichael, speaking with crowd at Will Rogers Park in Los Angeles
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2. 1960-2008 Imprisonment Rate vs Crime Rate from 1960-2008 Graphic showing U.S. imprisonment rate versus crime rate from 1960-2008 Critics also pointed to data showing that people of color were targeted and arrested on suspicion of drug use at higher rates than whites. Overall, the policies led to a rapid rise in incarcerations for nonviolent drug offenses, from 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 1997. In 2014, nearly half of the 186,000 people serving time in federal prisons in the United States had been incarcerated on drug-related charges, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
3. 1980 cuts in Title XX (the 1980 Omnibus Reconciliation Bill) “There are over 100,000 persons in California who depend on IHSS funded services to live on their own or in board and care facilities. One-third of these people are severely disabled, all of them are poor. Recent federal cutbacks in Title XX will mean a reduction of services to 99% of these people and many will lose up to 50% of benefits. The 1980 cuts in Title XX (the 1980 Omnibus Reconciliation Bill) are only now filtering down to the people who depend on it for services. In mid-year the California Legislature passed S.633 which determined how the $28 M. cut would be implemented. This act was held up by the courts until recipients had adequate notice and opportunity to appeal. In January 1982, the recipients will actually begin to lose benefits.” From: Testimony on the Impact of Federal Human Services Cutbacks on the Disabled for the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee Hearing January 18, 1982, Sacramento, California by EDWARD V. ROBERTS, DIRECTOR of the DEPARTMENT OF REHABILITATION
4. 1980 Why Jimmy Carter Ordered the U.S. to Boycott the 1980 Olympics
8. 1980s Restructuring and organized labor changes “Restructuring hit factories in southern Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley especially hard; plant closures eliminated many unionized jobs. In south Los Angeles, eight major plants closed from 1975 to 1986, leaving 12,000 people out of work. More closures came as defense contracts ended in the 1990s – especially in aircraft and shipbuilding – with the end of the Cold War. In addition to these broad changes, the economic crisis of the mid-1970s and a rightward shift in politics further eroded the power of organized labor. Business went on an anti-labor offensive in the 1970s and 1980s, seeking to weaken the union movement. They were bolstered by anti-unionism at the federal level, led by President Ronald Reagan who set the tone. In 1981, he fired striking air traffic controllers and replaced them with non-union workers, and championed business deregulation. In emerging high- tech industries, like electronics assembly plants, as well, owners were anti-union and often fostered sweatshop-like conditions in their plants.” Excerpt from SurveyLA Citywide Historic Context Statement
9. 1980s UFW
10. 1983 General Accounting Office Conducts Study (Environmental Justice) Prompted by the 1982 Warren County sit-in, the United States General Accounting Office (GAO) conducted the study: Siting of Hazardous Waste Landfills and Their Correlation with Racial and Economic Status of Surrounding Communities (PDF). This study is said to have "galvanized the environmental justice movement and provided empirical support for the claims for environmental racism." GAO found that three out of four hazardous waste landfills examined were located in communities where African Americans made up at least twenty-six percent of the population, and whose family incomes were below the poverty level. This study used 1980 Census data.
11. 1983 In Today’s Headlines, Echoes of Central America’s Proxy Wars of the 1980s deadly conflicts in crowded Central American cities and dusty hamlets during the 1980s. Their effects are still felt today. Over the decades, several million Central America migrants have sought opportunity, refuge, and stability in the United States, driven by a mix of factors including battered economies, violence, corrupt governments, and the desire to reunite with relatives who emigrated earlier or to find a family-sustaining job. While media attention in recent years has focused on the arrival of unaccompanied minors and families, primarily from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, the lion’s share of the 3.8 million Central American immigrants in the United States as of 2019 have been in the country for at least a decade. Displacement and economic instability caused by regional civil wars, in which the U.S. government had involvement, led many Central Americans to migrate in the 1980s. The wars ended, but economic instability remained—as did migration. The Central American immigrant population in the United States more than tripled between 1980 and 1990. Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and two earthquakes in 2001 were among the factors further driving migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Similar factors have remained at work in recent years. In November 2020, Hurricanes Eta and Iota devasted the region, affecting as many as 11 million people throughout Central America. Drought also has plagued parts of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras in what is known as the “Dry Corridor.” Further, government corruption, gang activity, and high homicide rates continue to affect parts of the region, driving emigration. The total Central American-born population in the United States has grown more than tenfold since 1980, and by 24 percent since 2010. The 3.8 million Central American immigrants present in 2019 accounted for 8 percent of the U.S. foreign-born population of 44.9 million.
12. 1986-87 Anti- Nuclear Protests Die-in at student union, UMass Amherst, sometime in the late 1980s. During the academic year 1986-1987, the campus at UMass Amherst was a hotbed of political protest, fueled in part by the US intervention in Central America. The arrival on campus of a CIA recruiting officer in November set off a string of demonstrations that attracted the support of activists Abbie Hoffman and Amy Carter, daughter of former president Jimmy Carter. The occupation of the Whitmore Administration Building was followed by a larger occupation of adjacent Munson Hall, resulting in a number of arrests. Hoffman, Carter, and eleven co-defendants were tried and acquitted on charges of disorderly conduct were tried in April 1987
13. 1987 Just Say No On September 23, 1987, first lady Nancy Reagan accepts on behalf of the “Just Say No Club” a check from the Procter & Gamble company for $150,000, in Washington, D.C. "Just Say No" was an advertising campaign prevalent during the 1980s and early 1990s as a part of the U.S.-led war on drugs, aiming to discourage children from engaging in illegal recreational drug use by offering various ways of saying no. The slogan was created and championed by Nancy Reagan during her husband's presidency
14. 1987 LA River Encampment “By the 1980s, the homelessness situation was a crisis. Skid Row was full, and [those experiencing homelessness] were living throughout the city, with people and families living under freeways, by the beach, and along the Los Angeles River’s 51 miles. Due to the surge in the population, LA County and City took desperate measures, opening City Hall as a temporary housing site, and signing an emergency agreement for a temporary “urban campground” for hundreds in need. This campground was on 12 acres of land lining the LA River and approximately 2,600 people looked to this camp for housing solutions. Unfortunately, this riverside camp was deemed unsuccessful and closed months later.”
15. 1989 - A diverse group of AIDS activists march in front of Oakland City Hall. April 1. This photograph, taken on April Fool's Day in 1989, shows minority AIDS activists marching to Oakland's City Hall to demand programs and funding for AIDS prevention and education in their communities. The disease first emerged between 1980 and 1981 in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. Doctors there reported to the Federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) they had seen a handful of people suffering from Kaposi's sarcoma, an extremely rare form of cancer, or pneumocistis carinii, a rare form of pneumonia, and swollen lymph nodes. The first wave of sufferers who sought medical attention was overwhelmingly white gay men. As a result, the few politicians, journalists, and members of the public who were paying attention responded as if AIDS was a gay disease affecting the white community.
16. 1989 UNITE HERE Local 11 “UNITE HERE Local 11, currently representing over 32,000 hospitality workers in southern California and Arizona, has a long history in Los Angeles. The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) Local 11 brought together previously separate locals for waiters, waitresses, bartenders, cooks, and other hotel workers. In the 1970s and 1980s, the predominantly Spanish-speaking membership of Local 11 fought for fuller participation in their union against a largely Anglo leadership. In 1989, María Elena Durazo became the first Latina to lead a major Los Angeles union. She began reorienting the local towards greater membership participation and a more assertive stance with employers. Since then, Local 11 merged with locals in Santa Monica, Long Beach, and Orange County, and in 2016, with Local 631 in Arizona.”
17. Harvard - Student Anti- Apartheid Protests A speaker addresses the crowd of students gathered to protest Harvard's investment in South African holdings during the late 1980s. A sign reads: "Put Apartheid Out of Business." Harvard University, April 25, 1985. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, these students made headlines by urging University administrators to pull Harvard’s investments from firms that did business with the apartheid government in South Africa, though Harvard never fully divested, despite continued protests.
18. Housing Overview smael Cazarez wearing serape and playing flute leading protest of housing demolition in Pico-Union neighborhood in Los Angeles, Calif., 1980 Hodge, Bill, December 15, 1980, Los Angeles Times - “In the decade following 1973, 4.5 million units were removed from the nation's housing stock, half of which was occupied by low-income households. In roughly the same period, over 1 million SRO units were lost, and the nation's public housing program was all but abandoned. It was replaced by the 'Section 8' rent-subsidy program that increased the residential location choice of recipients but only modestly increased the stock of affordable housing. Federal authorizations for housing subsidies amounted to 7 percent of the total budget in 1978; but by the late 1980s this proportion had shrunk to 0.7 percent. At the same time, the rise in single-person households dramatically increased the demand for housing across the nation. In Los Angeles and Southern California the consequence of these wider trends was a housing affordability crisis of unprecedented proportions. The proportion of households able to afford a median-priced home fell, and between 1974 and 1985, the number of housing units in L.A. County renting for $300 per month or less fell by 42 percent in real terms. In addition, the share of the total housing stock that was affordable fell from 35 percent in 1974 to 16 percent over the following decade. The number of poor renter households grew by 43,000 but the number of units they could technically afford fell by 60,000. Virtually no new public housing units were constructed during the 1980s, and between 1970 and 1989 market-rate housing unit growth in L.A. lagged at half the national rate.11”
19. 1980 - Ken Horne - CDC identifies first American Patient of the Aids Empidemic
20. Notable 1980s Labor History Events “1981 First Comparable Worth strike in United States, conducted by AFSCME Local 101 in San Jose; women achieve pay equity in city government jobs; 1981 President Ronald Reagan warns the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) that he would fired every member if they struck. They did and he did, resulting in the termination of all 10,000 federal air traffic controllers. 1983 The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) establishes local partnership from private and public employers who receive federal funds for job training and employment. Replaced the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA).”
21. UFW in the 1980s
22. Unemployment and Benefit Reductions “In Los Angeles, high unemployment in the late 1970s and early 1980s increased the welfare rolls, and drastic measures to curtail them were introduced. As a result of State actions, 38,000 recipients were dropped entirely, another 48,000 suffered benefit reductions, almost 8,000 lost food stamps, and about 12,000 AFDC families lost Medi-Cal coverage. Health and mental health funding was cut, along with funding for substance abuse treatment. Lawsuits forced the county to raise its General Assistance monthly payments (locally known as General Relief, or GR) from $228 in 1986 to $341 in 1991. However, this benefit payment was later slashed to $293 and has continued to decrease since then.”
23. USC Student Anti-Apartheid Protests A statue of USC’s mascot with a Anti-apartheid sign on his shield at rally on the campus of USC 1986. That was the campaign in the 1980s demanding divestment from companies doing business in South Africa.” It was an indirect strategy, but an effective one; because foreign companies played an important role in South Africa’s economy, their withdrawal undermined the country’s government. In conjunction with the massive resistance by South Africans, divestment forced companies to leave and not return until apartheid ended
26. 1981 Campaign to Keep GM Van Nuys Open Eric Mann describes organizing with Ed Asner (Actor): “...we initiated the Campaign to Keep GM Van Nuys Open in 1981 even before GM threatened to close our plant. We spent 2 years building a powerful coalition, we met with GM President F. James McDonald in 1984 as which time, shaken up by our real threat of a boycott of GM cars in the largest new car market in the U.S., he made a 3-year commitment to keep the plant open. Thanks to our work we won one of the great UAW labor/Black/Latin@/women’s victories of the entire period as GM kept the plant open until 1992—the exact ten years we had demanded to “keep GM Van Nuys Open.” More than 4,000 workers, 50% Latin@, 15 Black, 15% women, kept their jobs for a full decade.” Source “Speaking to a crowd of about 750 GM employees and their supporters, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson praised the auto workers as “freedom fighters,” and a Chamber of Commerce official said the possible plant closing could have a devastating economic impact on the entire San Fernando Valley.”
27. 1981 First Major News Article about HIV/ AIDS Article: https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/03/us/rare-cancer-seen-in-41-homosexuals.html Entitled “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals,” the article was penned by Lawrence K. Altman and appeared in the New York Times. At the time, gay men were dying of an unusual disease. They presented with purple spots on the skin, and their lymph nodes eventually became swollen before they died. It seemed to be cancer—but the symptoms matched a type usually only seen in very old people. The people who were dying at the time, however, were young and otherwise healthy. Doctors did not understand what was happening or whether the cancer was contagious.
30. 1982 Koreatown sin unveiled The 1965 Immigration Act ended various exclusionary immigration policies. It also set up a system of preference that favored skilled workers and the families of American citizens. This landmark piece of legislation facilitated massive new waves of Asian migration. New communities arose, such as Los Angeles’ Koreatown, and the Sikh community in Yuba City, whose temple is pictured here. As Asian migrants with more capital arrived, “suburban Chinatowns” such as Monterey Park grew.
31. 1982 A Salvadoran army unit advances on guerrilla positions in the capital's poor neighbourhood of Cuscatancingo, March 1982. photographs taken by Mike Goldwater during the Salvadoran Civil War, a 12-years long conflict resulted in the death of more than 75 thousand people and the displacement of over one million. The war was fought between military-led government forces and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, an umbrella organisation of five left-wing guerrilla groups, and ended with the Chapultepec Peace Accords in 1992. At the height of this conflict, Goldwater travelled to the small Central American nation in order to extensively document the role of the rural poor in the revolution, as well as the unrest in urban areas such as San Salvador, the capital.
32. 1982 Anti- nuclear Protests Upwards of one million people demonstrated in New York City's Central Park June 12, 1982 against nuclear weapons and for an end to the cold war arms race. It was the largest anti-nuclear protest in American history. On the morning of June 12, 1982, as the sun shined down on the green grass in Central Park, people began to gather carrying signs for nuclear disarmament. Throughout the morning, buses arrived from around the country. By the afternoon, nearly every blade of grass was covered. Citizens filled second, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, and Madison avenues. By mid-afternoon, the police estimated that over 750,000 people were in Central Park demanding an end to nuclear weapons. By the end of the day, that number had swelled to 1 million
33. 1982 Anti-nuclear protests
34. 1982 Plyler v. Doe This Supreme Court case ruled that public school districts cannot constitutionally refuse admission to unauthorized immigrant children because the harmful effects to the public outweighed the cost savings. Every child deserves a fair chance to learn and thrive. That might seem an obvious statement today, but it took years of legal battles fought by MALDEF to ensure that “every” child did not exclude any child – particularly, immigrant children. After nearly five years of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that all children, regardless of immigration status, have a constitutional right to a free public education from kindergarten to 12th grade. The landmark case, Plyler v. Doe, grew out of a 1977 attempt by the Tyler Independent School District in Texas to oust the children of undocumented workers – farmhands, for the most part – from the school system by imposing tuition of as much as $1,000 per student to attend what were for everyone else free public schools.
35. 1982 Warren County Warren County, North Carolina, was selected in 1982 by the state government as a landfill site for “6,000 truckloads of soil laced with toxic PCBs”. The residents of Warren County are majority Black and low-income (90% low income, and 66% African American according to Lehmann, 2011), and the carcinogen, PCB, poses a major threat to the health of the community. “But many frustrated residents and their allies, furious that state officials had dismissed concerns over PCBs leaching into drinking water supplies, met the trucks. And they stopped them, lying down on roads leading into the landfill. Six weeks of marches and nonviolent street protests followed, and more than 500 people were arrested—the first arrests in U.S. history over the siting of a landfill.”
36. 1983 A Movement Is Born: Environmental Justice and the UCC The Rev. Ben Chavis during a 1983 protest against the dumping of toxic waste. Photo by Ricky Stilley Through the leadership of Dollie Burwell, the Rev. Leon White, the Rev. Benjamin Chavis, Jr., and the UCC’s Commission for Racial Justice, the United Church of Christ served as the leading organizational force in the birth of the environmental justice movement. The story of how this movement arose begins in the late 1970s when a group of residents formed the Warren County Citizens Concerned (WCCC) and began to protest the state of North Carolina’s designation of a landfill in their county for the disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a toxic chemical substance whose production was banned by congress in 1979. With a population that was roughly 62% black, no other county in the state had a higher percentage of black residents, and only a few of the state’s one hundred counties could claim higher poverty rates. The placement of the landfill became to be regarded as an instance “environmental racism,” a phrase coined by Chavis. Photo Ricky Stilley While Chavis would ultimately take the helm of the UCC’s Commission for Racial Justice, it was White who served as the commission’s Executive Director when the WCCC first involved the group in its efforts. Both White and Chavis ultimately played leading roles in what became the watershed event in the launching of the movement. In September of 1982, the first trucks carrying PCB contaminated soil drove into Warren County but were met by hundreds of protestors who laid down on the highway to prevent their arrival. On the first day of action, 55 protestors were arrested. The protests lasted six weeks and were covered by the national media. By the end, 523 arrests were made. The attention garnered by the demonstrations in Warren County laid the foundation for more activism and consciousness-raising. In an article that appeared in the New Yorker, Chavis later recalled, “Warren County made headlines. And because it made headlines in the media, we began to get calls from other communities. But you know that in the eighties you couldn’t just say there was discrimination. You had to prove it.” Under the leadership of Chavis, the UCC’s Commission for Racial Justice issued its landmark 1987 report Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States. The study found that race rose to the top among variables associated with the location of a toxic waste facility. Three out of five Black and Hispanic Americans lived in a community that housed what the EPA called an “uncontrolled toxic waste site,” a closed or abandoned site that posed a threat to human health and the environment.
37. 1982 Sit-in Against Warren County, NC PCB Landfill September 1982: The second time African Americans mobilized a national, broad-based group was a nonviolent sit-in protest against a polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) landfill in Warren County, North Carolina. Over 500 environmentalists and civil rights activists were arrested and the protest was unsuccessful in halting construction. This event is widely understood to be the catalyst for the Environmental Justice Movement. North Carolina State Troopers pick up protestors on the road to the Warren County Landfill on September 17, 1982. The protestors, who sat on the road with their arms locked, were upset over the dumping of PCB-laden dirt in the landfill.AP Photo/Steve Helber
38. The Environmental Justice Movement: 1982 Warren County “The people of Warren County ultimately lost the battle; the toxic waste was eventually deposited in that landfill. But their story… drew national media attention and fired the imagination of people across the country who had lived through similar injustice. The street protests and legal challenges mounted by the people of Warren County to fight the landfill are considered by many to be the first major milestone in the national movement for environmental justice.”
39. In 1983, Jackie was elected to the LAUSD Board of Education, where she served for two terms From her time as student leader in the Free Speech Movement to her work as a classroom teacher in Compton, and through her leadership on the LAUSD School Board, the Los Angeles City Council, and in the California State Assembly, Jackie Goldberg has been a dedicated champion of quality public education and working families for her entire adult life. A Los Angeles native, Jackie was raised in Inglewood and educated in public schools. She graduated from Morningside High School before going on to the University of California at Berkeley and then pursuing a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from the University of Chicago. While at UC Berkeley, Jackie became a leader in the Free Speech Movement in 1964, sparking a lifelong passion for political activism and community organizing.
41. 1983 Carecen The Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), then called the Central American Refugee Center, was founded by Salvadoran refugees who were fleeing persecution by the military during the civil war. CARECEN was founded to secure political asylum for the refugees fleeing persecution, to defend their human rights and to offer immigration and basic social services needed by the refugees who were arriving in large numbers to Los Angeles. CARECEN received its 501 (c) (3) non-profit status.
42. 1983 Publication of Solid Waste Sites and the Houston Black Community Dr. Robert Bullard (husband to Linda McKeever Bullard, the attorney for the plaintiffs in Bean v. Southwestern Waste Management, Inc.), conducted a first-of-its-kind study documenting the location of municipal waste disposal facilities in Houston. Solid Waste Sites and the Black Houston Community was the first comprehensive account of environmental racism in the United States. Bullard and his researchers found that African American neighborhoods in Houston were often chosen for toxic waste sites. All five city-owned garbage dumps, 80 percent of city-owned garbage incinerators, and 75 percent of privately owned landfills were sited in black neighborhoods, although African Americans made up only 25 percent of the city's population. (Original Caption) 10/21/1982-Afton, NC- Resembling civil rights demonstrators of the 1960's, blacks and whites march together in protest against a dump for toxic wastes. Many in this rural community contend Warren County was chosen as the site because most of its citizens are black and poor. Officials deny the question of race played any part in the selection. Front center is Reverend Joseph Lowery of Atlanta, who heads the Southern Christian Leadership Conference founded by the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Environmental advocates lost that battle—North Carolina ultimately buried the PCBs in Warren County—but the controversy crystallized the idea that the nation's environmental problems disproportionately burden its low-income people of color. Other communities of color had organized to oppose environmental threats before Warren County. In the early 1960s, Latino farm workers led by Cesar Chavez fought for workplace rights, including protection from harmful pesticides in the farm fields of California's San Joaquin Valley. In 1967, African-American students took to the streets of Houston to oppose a city garbage dump in their community that had claimed the life of a child. In 1968, residents of West Harlem, in New York City, fought unsuccessfully against a sewage treatment plant in their community. But the Warren County protests marked the first instance of an environmental protest by people of color garnering widespread national attention. The environmental justice movement's power only multiplied when the data began to roll in. At the behest of Congressman Walter Fauntroy, the Washington, D.C., delegate arrested during the North Carolina protests, the General Accounting Office in 1983 confirmed that hazardous waste sites in three southeastern states were disproportionately located near black communities. Four years later, the United Church of Christ produced a landmark report showing that three out of five Latino and black Americans lived near a toxic waste site.
43. 1983 US Invasion of Grenada The United States invasion of Grenada began at dawn on 25 October 1983. The United States and a coalition of six Caribbean nations invaded the island nation of Grenada, 100 miles (160 km) north of Venezuela. Codenamed Operation Urgent Fury by the U.S. military, it resulted in military occupation within a few days. It was triggered by the strife within the People's Revolutionary Government which resulted in the house arrest and execution of the previous leader and second Prime Minister of Grenada Maurice Bishop, and the establishment of the Revolutionary Military Council with Hudson Austin as Chairman. The invasion resulted in the appointment of an interim government, followed by elections in 1984. The Reagan administration in the U.S. launched a military intervention following receipt of a formal appeal for help from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. In addition, the Governor-General of Grenada Paul Scoon secretly signaled he would also support outside intervention, but he put off signing a letter of invitation until 26 October. Reagan also acted due to "concerns over the 600 U.S. medical students on the island" and fears of a repeat of the Iran hostage crisis
45. Carecen: Migration of the Golden People by Judy Baca
46. Organizing Methods of the Justice for Janitors Movement ...The workers hold mops, brooms and signs and are rallying in an effort to gain union contract with building janitorial contractors. Photograph dated May 2, 1989.” Excerpt from Santa Offers Presents to Aid Cause of Janitors : Labor: His visits to L.A. office complexes turn out to be a campaign to pressure cleaning firms into recognizing union. “Office complex managers contend that disputes over treatment of janitors are out of their hands and instead are the responsibility of the cleaning companies. In response, the Justice for Janitors campaign has staged numerous demonstrations at major Los Angeles office complexes, contending that the complexes have a social responsibility to pressure their cleaning companies to recognize the union. As the result of a steady shift by office complexes to non-union cleaning companies, a typical janitor’s hourly wage in Los Angeles dropped from $7.07 in 1983 to $4.50 last year, according to a study done for the union by a UCLA graduate student in economics. This has allowed downtown office complexes to cut in half the percentage of rental income that goes to janitors wages, the study said. Local 399 has been able to win representation for about half of the 1,500 janitors who work for cleaning companies that contract with major downtown office towers, usually obtaining $1-an-hour raises to $5 or $5.50 an hour, as well as overtime and health benefits. In Century City, however, the union has yet to unionize any janitors. Which is why Santa Claus came to the pricey environs of Century Park East on Wednesday. Shaffer, followed by a half a dozen janitors and an equal number of their children, marched gleefully into several Century City buildings to present packages of gloves and issue a plea to surprised receptionists or building managers “that you treat your janitors with respect.””
47. 1984 - 15 Day Hunger Strike at La Placita Olvera Church
48. 1984 Joan Benoit Samuelson’s Olympic Marathon Win The moment when Joan Benoit Samuelson emerged into the sunlight of the Los Angeles Olympic stadium was the perfect symbol for how far women’s running had come. Even more than a symbol, the message Samuelson gave as she moved from obscurity to acclaim triggered a transformation that 35 years later is still gaining momentum. That was the moment when women's running worldwide moved from the margins to the mainstream.
50. 1984: Tent City highlights growing problem “In December 1984, advocates for the homeless opened a temporary shelter downtown at 1st and Spring streets, in the shadow of Los Angeles City Hall. Nicknamed “Tent City, ” it looks like a battlefield hospital. Cots are lined up, one next to the other, and sleeping bodies squirm under thin blankets. When it rains, drops fall from unseen leaks and deep puddles and mud cover the plastic spread over the grass for flooring.”
51. 1985 ABC Settlement
52. 1985 "Be Skeptical of the Spectacle" and "Respect your Perspective
53. 1985 Heal the Bay founded Heal the Bay was founded in 1985 by Dorothy Green and a group of Los Angeles residents who were fed up with pollution in the Santa Monica Bay. Together they successfully brought an end to Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant's dumping of semi-treated wastewater into the Bay, and their grassroots legacy lives on in our work. it was clear that the public was not being informed on poor water quality at all. The county and the city had beach-monitoring programs, but when the bacteria counts are really high, or even when there was a sewage spill, the public wasn’t always informed. So people go to the beach and swim in raw sewage contaminated water, so it’s just ridiculous. So I decided to create something called the Beach Report Card, and at first it was annual. Now it’s weekly in the whole West Coast. At first it was the annual in just Santa Monica Bay, and it started bringing attention to the beach issue. - Mark Gold
54. 1985 John Outterbridge with a group of students at the Watts Towers Artist John Outterbridge (right), director of Watts Towers Art Center, seen with a group of students, from the El Segundo Center St. Elementary School, who are touring the Watts Towers. Photograph dated March 22, 1985. Outterbridge began teaching at the Watts Towers Arts Center in the mid-1960s. He became director of the arts center in 1975. Beginning in the 1960s, Outterbridge and other artists sought a new visual language to express the African American experience, one that did not depend solely on representation. Assemblage, coupled with the move toward abstraction, allowed such artists to work through themes and ideas that concerned them without having to fall back on visual types. For Outterbridge, the exploration through art of his heritage, his struggles, and his past intersected with his interest in community activism. (https://hammer.ucla.edu/now-dig-this/artists/john-outterbridge)
55. 1985 The Minority Aids Project Love is for Everyone, 1991 By Mary Linn-Hughes and Reginald Zachary Minority AIDS Project Building5149 West Jefferson Boulevard (on Sycamore) ARTIST:Based in Huntington Beach, Linn-Hughes has spearheaded various art therapy projects. Among them, running a self-portrait photography workshop for people with AIDS and being the artist in residence at Orangewood Children's Home. SUBJECT:Text on the mural: I am your co-worker, I am the married couple who live down the street, I am your high school teacher, the woman you sit next to on the bus, the plumber who fixes your sink, the athlete you watch of television, the field worker who harvests your food, I am your brother, your sister, I am a person living with AIDS. The same text repeats in Spanish.
56. 1990 Mandela in Oakland during his “eight city tour” across America Mandela in Oakland during his “eight city tour” across America. The Regents convened a public forum in May 1985 to discuss divestment. The steps they took were only incremental, so protests continued for another year. American cities and schools were beginning to divest. Finally, in July of 1986, the UC Regents voted to divest $3.1 billion from companies doing business with the apartheid government. It was the largest university divestment in the country. In 1990, Mandela was released, and he stopped over in Oakland to thank the students and faculty of Berkeley — his "blood brothers and sisters." The students had changed not just the national but the international conversation on apartheid
57. Maria Elena Durazo “María Elena was born the seventh child in a family of eleven children to migrant worker parents. Growing up, María Elena traveled with her family, following the crops throughout California and Oregon, and experiencing the exploitative conditions and hardships that migrant laborers suffer. In spite of these obstacles, María Elena attended St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California, and graduated in 1975. In college she became involved in the Chicano Movement at the urging of her older brother. Then she entered the labor movement as an organizer for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (later called UNITE, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees). While working as a union organizer, she pursued an education in law at the People’s College of Law and earned her degree in 1985. By 1987, María Elena was ready to lead a drive by the rank and file of HERE Local 11 to make the union more responsive to its majority-Latino membership. The organizing drive successfully instituted a shop steward system that educated the rank and file on their rights, workers were now able to participate in negotiating their union contracts and all meetings and publications were from then on bilingual.”
58. 1985 WeHo Policy Changes Mayor Valerie Terrigno removing "Fagots Stay Out" sign from Barney's Beanery in West Hollywood, California, 1985. The ordinances adopted by the West Hollywood City Council within the first year of Cityhood included landmark legislation such as the City’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance (which, upon its adoption was one of the strictest rent control laws in the country); Ordinance prohibiting discrimination against people with HIV and AIDS; Domestic Partnership Ordinance; and Ordinance prohibiting discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation. Today, many of the City’s landmark ordinances have been duplicated and have become mainstream policies nationally and globally.
59. 1966 Organizational efforts to unionize farm workers in Central Washington 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.
60. 1986 Americans for Border Control
62. 1986 Chernobyl The meltdown and explosions ruptured the reactor core and destroyed the reactor building. This was immediately followed by an open-air reactor core fire which lasted until 4 May 1986, during which airborne radioactive contaminants were released and deposited onto other parts of the USSR and Europe. Approximately 70% landed in Belarus, 10 miles away. The fire released about the same amount of radioactive material as the initial explosion. In response to the initial accident, a 10-kilometre radius exclusion zone was created 36 hours after the accident, from which approximately 49,000 people were evacuated, primarily from Pripyat. The exclusion zone was later increased to a radius of 30 kilometres, from which an additional ~68,000 people were evacuated.
65. PROP 64 Group photograph of the BAYMEC group fighting against Prop 64 and Lyndon LaRouche, 1986. One of those dark moments happened in California in 1986 when paranoid perennial Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche at the height of the hysterical anti-gay backlash that had sprung up against the growing AIDS epidemic, founded his Prevent AIDS Now Initiative Committee (PANIC), which gathered enough signatures to place Proposition 64 onto the ballot. Prop 64, also known as the LaRouche Initiative, would have effectively forced anyone who was HIV-positive out of their jobs and schools and into a quarantine.
67. 1987 Black Monday View of the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on October 19, 1987. The Dow plunged over 22% that day, which has since been dubbed Black Monday. The degree to which the stock market crashes spread to the wider economy (or "real economy") was directly related to the monetary policy each nation pursued in response. The central banks of the United States, West Germany and Japan provided market liquidity to prevent debt defaults among financial institutions, and the impact on the real economy was relatively limited and short-lived.
68. 1987 Black Monday Paper flies through the air as trading closes at the Toronto Stock Exchange on Black Monday. During Black Monday, the DJIA fell 508 points (22.6%), accompanied by crashes in the futures exchanges and options markets. This was the largest one-day percentage drop in the history of the DJIA. Significant selling created steep price declines throughout the day, particularly during the last 90 minutes of trading. Deluged with sell orders, many stocks on the NYSE faced trading halts and delays. Of the 2,257 NYSE-listed stocks, there were 195 trading delays and halts during the day. Total trading volume was so large that the computer and communications systems in place at the time were overwhelmed, leaving orders unfilled for an hour or more. Large funds transfers were delayed for hours and the Fedwire and NYSE SuperDot systems shut down for extended periods
69. 1987 New minimum wage rally
70. 1987 "LA's Big Freeze" Unhoused folks sleeping on floor of Council Chambers at City Hall, Los Angeles, 1987 Gladstone, Penni January 22, 1987 Los Angeles Times “Cold temperatures gripped Southern California for the third straight night Saturday, the continuation of an unusual chill that has apparently caused two hypothermia deaths among Los Angeles’ homeless while threatening farmers’ crops and sending city dwellers scurrying for hand warmers and furs. The deaths were reported one day after the City Council declined to act on a proposal to open city buildings to the homeless and Mayor Tom Bradley appealed to the public to donate blankets to help keep them warm. The deaths prompted bitter accusations Saturday that the city isn’t doing enough to feed and shelter homeless people during the cold spell, which began Thursday and is expected to continue for several days.” BY CAROL MCGRAW AND JILL STEWART JAN. 18, 1987 12 AM PT Spurred by the deaths of four [people experiencing homelessness] from exposure to near-freezing temperatures, the Los Angeles City Council opened City Hall to serve as temporary housing. Authorities had come under harsh criticism for failing to provide shelter for homeless residents during the cold spell, which … reached its low point when the temperature at the Civic Center dipped to 36 degrees.”
71. 1987 Toxic Waste in the United States The United Church of Christ Commission on Racial Justice (UCC) released Toxic Waste in the United States (PDF). In this document, the UCC examined the statistical relationship between the location of a hazardous waste site and the racial/socioeconomic composition of host communities nationwide. The study found that over 15 million African Americans, 8 million Hispanics, and half of all Asian/Pacific Islanders and Native Americans resided in communities with at least one abandoned or uncontrolled toxic waste site. The UCC study was the first of its kind to address the issues of race, class, and the environment on a national level. The study noted that although the socioeconomic status of residents appeared to play an important role in the location of hazardous waste sites, the residents' race was the most significant factor among the variables analyzed.
72. 1987 Whittier Narrows Earthquake Whittier Narrows Earthquake aftermath, 1987. Whittier Narrows Earthquake, October 1, 1987. MAGNITUDE: 5.9, DEPTH: 9.5 km This earthquake occurred on a previously unknown, concealed thrust fault approximately 20 km east of downtown Los Angeles, California. It resulted in eight fatalities and $358 million in property damage. Severe damage was confined mainly to communities east of Los Angeles and near the epicenter. No severe structural damage to high-rise structures in downtown Los Angeles was reported.
73. 1987 Whittier Narrows Earthquake Earthquake damage to a building on Philadelphia Street in Whittier, 1987. The most severe damage occurred in the "Uptown" district of Whittier, the old downtown section of Alhambra, and in the "Old Town" section of Pasadena. These areas had high concentrations of unreinforced masonry buildings. Residences that sustained damage usually were constructed of masonry, were not fully anchored to foundations, or were houses built over garages with large door openings. Many chimneys collapsed and in some cases, fell through roofs. Wood frame residences sustained relatively little damage
74. 1988 New minimum wage Photograph shows Margarita Vargas speaking at a rally to inform workers in the garment district not to work for less than $4.25 an hour, which is the new minimum wage. Photograph dated July 1, 1988 “Although the increase to $4.25 fell short of the $5.01 “moral minimum wage” sought by organized labor and community groups who had lobbied hard for an increase, leaders in the movement declared themselves pleased with Friday’s vote. “This is a major victory for minimum-wage workers throughout the state,” said the Rev. John Seymour, pastor of Ascension Church in South-Central Los Angeles and a leader of a grass-roots lobbying effort by three Los Angeles community organizations for the increased wage.”” BY HENRY WEINSTEIN DEC. 19, 1987
75. 1989 Black Monday A stock broker smokes a cigarette in exhaustion at the New York Stock Exchange after the events of Black Monday, October 19, 1987. Black Monday is the name commonly given to the global, sudden, severe, and largely unexpected stock market crash on Monday, October 19, 1987. All of the twenty-three major world markets experienced a sharp decline in October 1987. Out of twenty-three major industrial countries, nineteen had a decline greater than 20%. Worldwide losses were estimated at US$1.71 trillion. The severity of the crash sparked fears of extended economic instability or even a reprise of the Great Depression.
76. 1987 Black Monday A stock broker with his face in his palms at the New York Stock Exchange after the events of Black Monday, October 19, 1987. Before the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) opened on Black Monday, October 19, 1987, there was pent-up pressure to sell stocks. When the market opened, a large imbalance immediately arose between the volume of sell orders and buy orders, placing considerable downward pressure on stock prices. Regulations at the time permitted designated market makers (also known as "specialists") to delay or suspend trading in a stock if the order imbalance exceeded that specialist's ability to fulfill orders in an orderly manner. The order imbalance on October 19 was so large that 95 stocks on the S&P 500 Index (S&P) opened late, as also did 11 of the 30 DJIA stocks. Importantly, however, the futures market opened on time across the board, with heavy selling.
77. Discrimination against LGBTQ immigrants has a long history in U.S. immigration policy The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, while it reversed the national origin quota system, became the first policy to explicitly prevent “sexual deviates” from entering the country under the guise of a medical exclusion. The Act also requirePost-war America saw the rise not only of the Red Scare, but also a lesser known “lavender scare” in which the federal government launched a “Pervert Elimination Campaign.” This discriminatory policy resulted in the arrests, firings, and general social persecution of LGBTQ Americans working for the federal government. This anti-LGBTQ sentiment spilled over into the broader culture as well, causing concern among LGBTQ individuals working in different industries across the country. The government’s anti-LGBTQ attitudes were insidious, and found their way into immigration policy as well. The 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act upheld the controversial national origins quota system that had been established in 1924, despite President Harry Truman’s opinion that the law was racist and discriminatory. In addition to reinforcing the national origins quota, the 1952 INA also instituted new, anti-Communist and anti-LGBTQ laws preventing people from entering the country or obtaining green cards or citizenship. The INA referred to LGBTQ people as “aliens afflicted with a psychopathic personality, epilepsy or mental defect.” The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, while it reversed the national origin quota system, became the first policy to explicitly prevent “sexual deviates” from entering the country under the guise of a medical exclusion. The Act also required the legacy Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS, now subsumed by the Department of Homeland Security) to deport LGBTQ people. This policy was not reformed until the Immigration Act of 1990, when sexual orientation was finally removed as a grounds of exclusion from the U.S. However, the ban on HIV/AIDS-positive individuals from entering the U.S., which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1987, remained in effect until 2010. HIV/AIDS disproportionately affected the LGBTQ community in the 1980s, making the bans particularly harmful to LGBTQ migrants even after the ban on entry due to sexual orientation was lifted.
78. University of Missouri Anti- Apartheid Student Protests A student reads the newspaper in her shanty on MU's Francis Quadrangle. Originally ran Feb. 22, 1987. When the first shanties were torn down, Weitzel said more would be rebuilt. Police said if the shanties were rebuilt, the protesters would be arrested. On Feb. 6, 1987, Weitzel kept her promise, and the police kept theirs. At a rally of about 200 people, 41 protesters were arrested for occupying the shanties. Duane Stucky, MU’s interim chancellor at the time, said he would press for state prosecution, and some students could face student-conduct regulations.
79. Free Huey Huey P. Newton, in full Huey Percy Newton, (born February 17, 1942, Monroe, Louisiana, U.S.—died August 22, 1989, Oakland, California), American political activist, cofounder (with Bobby Seale) of the Black Panther Party (originally called Black Panther Party for Self-Defense). An illiterate high-school graduate, Newton taught himself how to read before attending Merritt College in Oakland and the San Francisco School of Law. While at Merritt he met Seale. In Oakland in 1966 they formed the Black Panther group in response to incidents of alleged police brutality and racism and as an illustration of the need for Black self-reliance. At the height of its popularity during the late 1960s, the party had 2,000 members in chapters in several cities. In 1967 Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of a police officer. His imprisonment sparked protests—and the popular rallying cry “Free Huey.” His conviction was overturned in 1970, and he was released from prison. In 1971 he announced that the party would adopt a nonviolent manifesto and dedicate itself to providing social services to the Black community, which included free meals for children and health clinics. In 1974 Newton was accused of another murder and fled to Cuba for three years before returning to face charges; two trials resulted in hung juries.
82. 1989 East and West German people celebrate the end of cold war East and West German people celebrate the end of cold war on top of the Berlin Wall, November 10, 1989. Two million East Germans invaded West Berlin, making history with a good day out. The cork-popping on the Berlin Wall at the end of last week had been portrayed to the world as the symbolic theatre of reunification. All over the city, seven-hour queues crammed the pavement, waiting for each visitor’s DM 100 gift from the government. In the banks, they collected a white slip of paper, walked over to the Kasse and exchanged it for either a blue note or two brown ones.
83. 1989 Contribution of Minorities to the Progress of California By Orlando Castillo Beverly at Harvard Hollywood. ARTIST: Born in the Philippines, Castillo studied art at the University of San Tomas. From a young age he wanted to be an artist but his traditional parents felt it was their duty to choose a career path for their four children. However, the young artist was determined to waylay their plans of making him into an architect. To support his studies in fine art, Castillo undertook commercial art, even doing fashion designs at the age of 15. Always very political, Castillo views himself as a social realism artist-which has gotten him in trouble at times. He was imprisoned during the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship for distributing political prints, posters, and flyers to field and factory workers. “Artists don’t belong to any country. The artist’s work must reflect the community he lives in” –Orlando Castillo SUBJECT: This mural shows the U.S., represented as a woman with a torch, welcoming immigrants to help build California. Coming to America, or finding one's place in america, is one of the many themes muralists concentrate on in L.A. The struggle for survival as migrant workers, their perseverance in preserving their cultural knowledge, and their aspirations and dreams in this country are some prominent themes shown. The mural depicts the ways in which immigrants from his country and from other places in Asia have contributed to the economy and culture of California.
84. 1989 “Failure to Disperse: The L.A. Police Riot” “DOES THE AVENUE of the Stars now lead to Tiananmen Square? For two bloody hours last Friday June 15), the LAPD sealed off Century City so that they could beat and arrest scores of striking janitors and their supporters. While horrified office workers and residents looked on (including, perhaps, Ronald Reagan in his Fox Plaza suite), the police repeatedly flailed the front lines of the justice for Janitors march with riot batons, before launching a flanking attack that swept an en tire section of the crowd into an underground parking structure. Those trapped inside were mercilessly pummeled; trying to flee, they were arrested for “failure to disperse.” From Mike Davis, “Failure to Disperse: The L.A. Police Riot”
85. 1989 Striking in Century City “During each strike, the campaign organized public dramas intended to increase awareness of the movement, publicly embarrass select individuals in the industry, and build public support. They began by demonstrating along Santa Monica and Olympic Boulevards with signs reading “Century City: Luxury by Day, Sweatshop by Night,” and “ISS + JMB Equals Poverty for Janitors.” In one particularly creative action, the union marched through the city and encouraged supporters to bring their garbage and dump it at Century City; later, in a nationwide campaign, supporters mailed it directly them to the owners of the buildings. As the strikers grew in number and their supporters became more vocal, police presence at the public events increased. The Los Angeles Police Department eventually set up a command post in Century City, one of the safest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. In response, Local 399 conducted frequent civil disobedience training to ensure that the strikers were educated about their right to peaceful assembly and the legalities associated with protesting. This training prepared the demonstrators to submit to arrest and respond non-violently to provocation by the police, in anticipation of resistance from law enforcement. On June 15th, 1990, the Justice for Janitors movement marched from Roxbury Park in Beverly Hills to a planned rally in Century City. The peaceful protesters, clad in red Justice for Janitors t-shirts, were met by over one hundred members of the LAPD in full riot gear as they attempted to cross into the Century City office park. Though the marchers were in a public space, the police aggressively ordered them disperse. A bullhorn rang out, claiming the march was an illegal assembly. In an act of planned and non-violent civil disobedience, the protesters moved into the street and sat down, preparing to be arrested. Among them was Ana Veliz, an ISS janitor from El Salvador who made $4.25 an hour and worked two jobs to send money back to her mother and six children outside the United States. Veliz became pregnant in March of 1990 and fought with Justice for Janitors for the fair wages and health insurance she would need to safely deliver and raise her child.”
86. 1989 Wits University Student at Wits University flee as police fire tear gas at them during an anti-apartheid protest rally in 1989. The education system was part of this apartheid-capitalist system that dehumanised people in ghettos of poverty. Despite, and because of, strong state repression, an era of youth politics ignited on June 16 1976. The political tide turned and made liberation from a colonised mind-set and socioeconomic suppression thinkable
87. 1992 Chinese Student Protection Act

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6. 1970 2nd Chicano Moratorium: Las Adelitas de Aztlán join protest “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.
7. 1967 Century City Protestor removed by Police In retrospect, the Century Plaza demonstration was one of the earliest battlegrounds. The original idea was to stage a march from Rancho Park, up Pico Boulevard and past the hotel on Avenue of the Stars, then turn onto Santa Monica Boulevard and go home. But as the marchers reached the hotel, a vanguard of radicals ignored the terms of the police permit and sat down in the street. The march halted. Police said they issued a dispersal order several times on a powerful loudspeaker, but many demonstrators said that in all the noise and chants they failed to hear it. Then hundreds of officers moved in, their nightsticks held in front of them, pushing the demonstrators away. Some of the people fought back. Some photographs show police swinging their nightsticks at marchers who were not resisting. A particularly bitter clash took place under the Olympic Boulevard bridge. …June 23, 1967: A protester is removed from Century Plaza during a speech by President Lyndon Johnson.(Frank Q. Brown / Los Angeles Times Archive/UCLA)
14. 1970 3rd Chicano Moratorium: Rosalio Munoz speaks at Laguna Park
17. 1974 The Great Wall of Los Angeles 1974 The Great Wall of Los Angeles is one of Los Angeles’ true cultural landmarks and one of the country’s most respected and largest monuments to inter-racial harmony. SPARC’s first public art project and its true signature piece, the Great Wall is a landmark pictorial representation of the history of ethnic peoples of California from prehistoric times to the 1950’s, conceived by SPARC’S artistic director and founder Judy Baca. Begun in 1974 and completed over five summers, the Great Wall employed over 400 youth and their families from diverse social and economic backgrounds working with artists, oral historians, ethnologists, scholars, and hundreds of community members.
18. 1967 The Bloody March - America at War with Itself
20. 1968 Oakland High School at funeral for Black Panther Bobby Hutton 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.
21. 2012 California voters approved a ballot measure that would amend the state’s highly controversial Three Strikes law. https://blackyouthproject.com/ca-voters-approve-ballot-measure-reforming-three-strikes-law/ The revised law would require that the third offense be of a serious or violent nature–not something as minor as writing a bad check or, in a much-cited example, stealing a pair of socks. “Tonight’s vote on Proposition 36 sends a powerful message to policymakers in California and across the country that taxpayers are ready for a new direction in criminal justice,” Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project, told the San Jose Mercury News. “States that have already made some changes to their sentencing laws may be inspired to take a second look, and states that haven’t made significant changes yet may start.” In addition to altering the sentencing guidelines for future convicts, Prop 36 also creates a pathway for nearly 3,000 inmates currently serving life sentences under the Three Strikes Law to petition for a reduced term.
22. 1968 Los Angeles high school walkout protesters in their car: "Get Cops Out of Schools" 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)
24. 1971 Student and barrio youth lead protest march in Belvedere Park.
25. 2007 Dream Act The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, known as the DREAM Act, is a United States legislative proposal to grant temporary conditional residency, with the right to work, to undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as minors—and, if they later satisfy further qualifications, they would attain permanent residency. In April 2001, United States Senators Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) first introduced the bill in the Senate as S. 1291, but it did not pass. The proposal has since been reintroduced several times, but has not been approved by majorities in either house of the United States Congress.[1][2]
27. 1992 Chinese Student Protection Act
28. 1970 After Chicano Moratoriums: After moratorium demonstration 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
29. 1966 Youth being searched by police during crackdown on the Sunset Strip
30. 1970 After Chicano Moratoriums: 1974 ASCO First Supper After a Major Riot 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.
31. 1960s/1970s Asian American protest 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.
32. 1970 After Chicano Moratoriums: 1971 ASCO Stations of the Cross 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.
33. 1960s Brown Berets members 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.
34. 1960s Brown Beret member Gloria Arellenas and others 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.
36. 1960s/1970s GIDRA Staff photo 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.
37. 1971 Asian Americans not only called for peace in order to bring troops home, but also protested U.S. intervention and imperialism in Vietnam 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
38. 1969 1st Chicano Moratorium: Outside recruiting center
39. 1968 SFSU Mass Strike Called 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
40. 1976 - The Great Wall of Los Angeles The Great Wall of Los Angeles is one of Los Angeles’ true cultural landmarks and one of the country’s most respected and largest monuments to inter-racial harmony. SPARC’s first public art project and its true signature piece, the Great Wall is a landmark pictorial representation of the history of ethnic peoples of California from prehistoric times to the 1950’s, conceived by SPARC’s artistic director and founder Judith F. Baca. Begun in 1974 and completed over six summers, the Great Wall employed over 400 youth and their families from diverse social and economic backgrounds working with artists, oral historians, ethnologists, scholars, and hundreds of community members.
43. 1960s/1970s Student protesting for Asian Studies classes 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
44. 1969 Portrait of Brown Beret member Hilda Jensen 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.
47. 1968 Wilson High School student protester Peter Rodriguez at LAUSD Board of Education meeting 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.
48. 1970 Official Resignation of all women in the Brown Berets LA chapter
49. 1970 - Marching for peace-rally through through the streets of Little Tokyo 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
52. 1967 Police Raid Silverlake's Black Cat "As the Rhythm Queens, a trio of black women, sang a rock version of "Auld Lang Syne," balloons fell from the ceiling and gay men exchanged the traditional midnight kiss. That was when uniformed police, who had been alerted by the undercover officers, rushed in and began to swing billy clubs, tear down leftover Christmas ornaments, break furnishings, and beat men brutally. Sixteen customers and employees were arrested and forced to lie face down on the sidewalk until squad cars came to take them away."- GAY L.A.
53. 1972 JoAnne/Nobuko Miyamoto and Chris Iijima perform at the Third World Storefront organization 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.
55. 1973 three young activists in New York City recorded A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle by Asians in America 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.
56. 1968 Walkouts at Venice High School
57. 1967 Century City Antiwar Protest 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. …
58. Free Huey Huey P. Newton, in full Huey Percy Newton, (born February 17, 1942, Monroe, Louisiana, U.S.—died August 22, 1989, Oakland, California), American political activist, cofounder (with Bobby Seale) of the Black Panther Party (originally called Black Panther Party for Self-Defense). An illiterate high-school graduate, Newton taught himself how to read before attending Merritt College in Oakland and the San Francisco School of Law. While at Merritt he met Seale. In Oakland in 1966 they formed the Black Panther group in response to incidents of alleged police brutality and racism and as an illustration of the need for Black self-reliance. At the height of its popularity during the late 1960s, the party had 2,000 members in chapters in several cities. In 1967 Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of a police officer. His imprisonment sparked protests—and the popular rallying cry “Free Huey.” His conviction was overturned in 1970, and he was released from prison. In 1971 he announced that the party would adopt a nonviolent manifesto and dedicate itself to providing social services to the Black community, which included free meals for children and health clinics. In 1974 Newton was accused of another murder and fled to Cuba for three years before returning to face charges; two trials resulted in hung juries.
59. 1969 UCLA philosophy department hired Angela Davis
60. 1968 Female student being arrested at Venice High School Walkout 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
61. 1971 “Liberation,” January 1971 issue of Gidra 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.
62. 1966 Riots on the Sunset Strip
63. Chicana Feminists Chicana feminists in Southern California engaged in a range of groups and activities, both on college campuses and in their communities - often both. Regardless of the specifics of their politics or focus, most were initially politicized in the Chicano movement of the late 1960s; and most developed their feminist consciousness as a result of their direct experience with sexism in that movement. The six individual narrators in this series reflect this common background. The four activists in Hijas de Cuauhtemoc (Anna NietoGomez, Corinne Sanchez, Leticia Hernandez and Sylvia Castillo) cut their political eye teeth in the Chicano student group, UMAS/MEChA, at CSULB. In fact, it was their experiences in MEChA that motivated them to form the Hijas group (which published a newspaper by the same name). They were also involved in community groups and continued this activism after they left college, particularly in the Chicana Service Action Center. Yolanda Nava , who was one of the founding members of Comision Femenil Mexicana (CFM) and later served a term as president, was also introduced to the Chicano movement through MEChA. Although more than a decade older than these activists, Consuelo Nieto had similar experiences with sexism. Her introduction to the Chicano movement came while she was teaching in the schools in ELA, where high school students had organized to demand better education. A word about language in this series: While the term Anglo came to be used later, during the heyday of the Chicana feminist movement - and particularly in the debate and conflict with those who excoriated the feminists - White was the term most often used. In their interviews, the women themselves used the term White. It should also be noted that Cuauhtemoc is sometimes spelled "Cuahtemoc." NOTE: The interviews with the founders and former members of Hijas de Cuauhtemoc were conducted by Maylei Blackwell for what became her larger research project. As a courtesy to her, the audio recordings of these interviews will not be available until 2006. Until then, they can be used on-site at CSULB with her permission. See also her essay, "Contested histories: las hijas de Cuauhtâemoc, Chicana feminisms, and print culture in the Chicano movement, 1968-1973" in Gabriela Arredondo et al., Chicana Feminisms: A Critical Reader (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003) and the response by Anna NietoGomez. See also the writings of Anna NietoGomez, and other femenista pioneers in Alma Garcia, ed., Chicana Feminist Thought: Basic Historical Writings. New York: Routledge, 1997.
64. 1960s/1970s GIDRA sisters
65. March 1968 Sal Castro with walkout students at Lincoln High School Image courtesy of LA Times Photographic Archive, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA. Set the Night on Fire: "Castro, a high school teacher long active in liberal and Mexican-American causes, was a key force in organizing student walkouts to protest school conditions in East L.A. The "Blowouts", as they were soon called, were genesis events in the emergence of a new, militant "Chicano" identity.
67. 1971 Anti-War demonstration on Wilshire Blvd Politicized by War 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.
68. 1970 East L.A. picketing to protest conditions at the school
Contents of this tag:
1. 1966 Riots on the Sunset Strip
2. Free Huey Huey P. Newton, in full Huey Percy Newton, (born February 17, 1942, Monroe, Louisiana, U.S.—died August 22, 1989, Oakland, California), American political activist, cofounder (with Bobby Seale) of the Black Panther Party (originally called Black Panther Party for Self-Defense). An illiterate high-school graduate, Newton taught himself how to read before attending Merritt College in Oakland and the San Francisco School of Law. While at Merritt he met Seale. In Oakland in 1966 they formed the Black Panther group in response to incidents of alleged police brutality and racism and as an illustration of the need for Black self-reliance. At the height of its popularity during the late 1960s, the party had 2,000 members in chapters in several cities. In 1967 Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of a police officer. His imprisonment sparked protests—and the popular rallying cry “Free Huey.” His conviction was overturned in 1970, and he was released from prison. In 1971 he announced that the party would adopt a nonviolent manifesto and dedicate itself to providing social services to the Black community, which included free meals for children and health clinics. In 1974 Newton was accused of another murder and fled to Cuba for three years before returning to face charges; two trials resulted in hung juries.