Question for 1960s protesters...

[Fire Walk With Me]

First, thank you for working so hard for everyone. Question, because I just don't know enough about it: Did your protests receive the same sort of response as Oakland saw last night as quickly as #Occupy? Or has the volume knob been set to 11?

Edit: I knew the civil rights protests were always met with violence (look what happened to their leaders, God rest them)...was interested in the anti-war protesters and so called "hippies". Thanks for all of the replies. It's fucking criminal, it has to be changed.

[RKP5637]

1. At Kent State they opened fire and murdered protesters! n/t

[Zen Democrat]

2. Civil Rights marches in the South were brutal from the beginning.

The protests against the war in the late 60's heated up after Chicago in '68 and the election of Nixon later that year and increasingly up to the Kent State massacre.

[cyberpj]

7. Full force water hoses and dogs in addition to the usual clubs and fists. nt

[cbayer]

3. Protesters were beaten and tear gassed in Chicago in 1968,

This went on for days.

[coalition_unwilling]

33. Not just protesters, but reporters and civilian passers by. Chicago '68

became a full-fledged 'police riot,' an official commission convened aftewards concluded.

[cbayer]

39. I was there. Both of my parents were arrested.

The Chicago 8 trial was a class I took in high school and I attended the trial multiple days.

It was quite a time and I hope we don't get to that point again.

[Blue_In_AK]

4. I've only been gassed once,

and that was at a music festival in Denver in 1969. People were trying to crash the gates to get in free, cops threw tear gas, crashers threw it back at them and the whole Denver stadium got gassed with people running out onto the field and so on. Not a pretty picture.

Other protests I was at, people got their skulls cracked, but no tear gas. One I remember specifically in San Francisco when people were protesting Nguyen Cao Ky I think, or one of those Vietnam guys, who was in the City for some reason. The large marches I participated in were generally peaceful. I do remember after Kent State that Berkeley got gassed so bad that we could see the cloud from our hilltop over in the City.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. I got chased around campus. Cops with shot guns circled around us at the federal building.

Got my picture taken several times.

I escaped beatings because I was fleet of foot at the time. Others weren't fast enough or unlucky.

[Ineeda]

6. Real media coverage helped the efforts.

Generally, news coverage grew supporters and the outrages even more so.

[cyberpj]

10. Amen to that. We also eventually had John Kerry re Vietnam. nt

[ChandlerJr]

8. Yes.

Mayor Richard J. Daley called out 7,500 members of the Illinois National Guard to reinforce the 12,000 police officers. Wednesday night they tried to remove everyone -- mostly party volunteers, candidate supporters and tourists -- from Michigan Avenue in front of the Hilton hotel, which was the convention headquarters. While the nominating speeches were being given at the amphitheater several miles away, these unlucky people were pushed through plate glass windows when caught between Guard and police as they dispersed the crowd.

http://www.jofreeman.com/photos/convention68.html

And then Google Kent State

Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

[Fire Walk With Me]

22. We have to build a better world, we have to...

[EC]

27. This was part of the change

when parents saw on tv their kids getting beat by the cops in Chi Town.

[Magoo48]

28. This was a very dark day....

[lob1]

9. During the Viet Nam protests, the police were absolutely

ruthless. I was at the Century City protest march here in L.A. There were about 50,000 protestors. Our permit said we could march, but we could not stop. Well, the police lined up in the street blocking the march. They then said we had violated our permit by stopping, then they attacked us with batons. We all ran for our lives. I finally reached a bridge where I could look back and I saw at least a dozen people laying on the ground. It looked like a war zone, literally. One of the protesters near me had a portable radio, and a "reporter" supposedly at the scene said the protesters had attacked the police and the police had to defend themselves. Lies, of course. I was at the front of the march, and the police definitely attacked unprovoked.

[coalition_unwilling]

34. I know a veteran of that very protest who got his skull cracked. He

is able to joke about it now but it sounds as if your description matches his pretty closely. (He was wearing a helmet of sorts, so did not suffer permanent damage (at least of the visible type :)

[Fire Walk With Me]

11. I am so sorry...you, and we, deserve far better.

[MADem]

12. Depends. Some did, some did not.

Most of the ones I attended were entirely peaceful. The police stayed to the side and directed traffic. I was at a few where there were "dust-ups" but nothing like Kent or Chicago.

[Tikki]

13. You know what....looking back...I think that..

cities and police departments wanted to get the protests going, moving on, so they
could go into the crowds and gas and beat people.

Remember the FBI and others planted people inside the protests to
agitate the police so conflicts would happen.

Listen very carefully to the RW rhetoric coming out now: dirty people, illegal activities, assaults within the
camps, hurting by-standers, etc. No attention by the media on the protestors written issues.

The 1% will try any tactics they think will work to discredit the 99%ers.


Tikki

[RKP5637]

16. It's the SOS. Same criminal tactics, just 50 years or so later. The repressive police state

keeps rising to the occasion. And many citizens like good little sheep remain aloof to what is going on as they walk their ruts to the slaughter.

[RKP5637]

14. I have a strong feeling it's all going to repeat, it will heat up more, and TPTB will

escalate the violence to beat down those wanting a true democracy and fairness in "the system." Their ability to suppress the masses today is, of course, far more advanced than in the 60's. And the police state enforcers will do their bidding. Opening live fire on citizens, eventually, will be tolerated by TPTB. No threat to the Plutarchy will be left standing.

[Warpy]

15. They were a lot ruder to us a hell of a lot sooner

because ours were so lopsided: mostly young, mostly collegiate, mostly left. We never had support from unions whose members had put in their 2 years as draftees and saw us as unpatriotic, privileged little shits. We never had broad support from older people who still believed they were fighting extensions of WWII. We were very alone and the cops declared open season on us.

The attitude we were faced with is the one you see in those white shirted old guys in NYC who are working desk jobs until they retire.

What people need to be aware of (and most cops seem to be) is that this is a majority movement: we're all sick of getting screwed without getting kissed and this is just the opening protest. Things are going to escalate from here until and unless the plutocracy is frightened into yielding.

[RKP5637]

18. Yep, this cuts across many types of people, classes and wealth. Many are just

absolutely fed up with the system now designed to screw just about everyone. I see all types of people in the OWS protests wherein as you say, we were "mostly young, mostly collegiate, mostly left." And, they're a hell of a lot more people in the 99% than we were ...

If, these protests are not successful, then I think the future of America is going to be dreadful for the majority ...

[Terry in Austin]

17. Some deja vu here

It varied -- some marches and demonstrations passed without incident, some didn't. I think the overall approach and style of the movement back then was more confrontational, so headbusting backlash was sort of expected. It was also good fodder for publicity, and demonstrations are at bottom a bid for publicity.

The confrontational, activist style was kind of a step backwards, I thought, from that of the civil rights movement, which was the direct antecedent of the antiwar movement and had a lot more of a Gandhian passive resistance ethic to it. I see kind of a return to that in the OWS approach, and I think that has much to do with its success so far.

It seemed like police reaction to demonstrations varied a lot from city to city, as they do now.

Back then, though, the volume knobs only went up to IX.

;-)

[Ernesto]

19. I was there..........

But this time around we have COMMUNICATION!

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Yup, them dogs and fire hoses

Were out from begining. No I was not there...but there are good books on it

Oh and the police riot in '68 has similarities to last night.

[MineralMan]

21. It depended on many factors. Some protests turned ugly,

while others didn't. Selma, in 1965, was extremely tense and the prospect of violence was always present. I didn't experience any, but met people who did. I arrived in Selma just before Dr. King and others marched into Montgomery. I got to hear him speak there. By the time I arrived, things had quieted down a good deal. During the anti-war protests, it all depended on where you were and the nature of the protest. A lot of them were uneventful. A few turned ugly. I was at both types. Not being one who seeks out punishment, I usually tried to assess the situation and situate myself where there was room to get the heck out of Dodge if I needed to. Even so, I got gassed a couple of times and thumped with a night stick a couple of times. Got arrested more often than I got hurt, but never was prosecuted for anything.

[Roselma]

23. The war protests I attended were pretty much peaceful and left

alone by the police. In today's world, even the most minor of police bad behavior is recorded and put out for everybody to see almost instantaneously. You'd think that today's police officers would be cognizant that their aggression isn't going to be a secret.

[TygrBright]

24. Anti-war protests were met with violent resistance from the git-go.

Of course, some of them started with much less orderly action and much less emphasis on keep things civil and non-violent. Some of them were out for confrontation and they got it.

But by and large even the consciously peaceful ones got the tear gas and baton treatment.

reminiscently,
Bright

[dembotoz]

25. nothing much happened at the protests i attended

i am a younger hippie
graduated from high school in 71???
by the time i came on the scene the scene was pretty much over
protests were more tolerated--you like--oh its you guys again.

the university i went to had the claim to fame that the only riot they had on campus was when they wanted to raise the drinking age....

while i was there, the local pd did manage to buy an armoured personnel carrier....probably used it in parades.

[EC]

26. We expected to be gassed or clubbed

that was just part of it when the left goes out to complain.

[rurallib]

29. I was pretty lucky

only one incident despite being at most of the demonstrations.
Police were "moving us back" and I got a billy club swung near the head.
I was in the midwest and it was much quieter than most other areas.

[Jackpine Radical]

30. Pepper gas was just part of the atmosphere in Madison

from '68 to '72 or so. On some occasions, the cops threw gas into the Memorial Library just for the hell of it. They came at us in phalanxes, and I remember one time when they pushed the thousands of protesters up against a long 10' chain link fence, until their massed body weight brought the fence down.

Tere were National Guardsmen all over the place too, much of the time. Some of them were carrying M-79 grenade launchers. I don't know if they had ammunition for them, but there is a teargas round made for the M-79.

[coalition_unwilling]

35. Jackpine, have you read David Maraniss' stunning book "They

Marched into Sunlight"? It looks at a single day in Madison and Vietnam in, IIRC, 1967. Back when Paul Soglin headed up the antiwar movement. Wonderful book, so thought I would pass along the reference for you.

[Jackpine Radical]

37. I had forgotten about that book.

Interesting--I was in Vietnam in 1967-68, and in Madison both before and after the little side adventure in Vietnam.

[Warren Stupidity]

31. We had the living shit beat out of us in chicago '68

and a whole lot of other places too. And of course kent state and jackson state.

[graywarrior]

32. It was worse because middle America was not with us early on

I got thrown out of a supermarket once because I was called a anti-war commie. Got gassed multiple times protesting.

[coalition_unwilling]

36. I was 11 years old in 1970, old enough to dig Woodstock (the triple LP with

Country Joe's 'Fish Cheer' which, to my 11-year-old ears was a revolutionary act :)

Daniel Ellsburg has said that the War in Vietnam will not be over once and for all (Bush Sr.'s opinion notwithstanding) until the U.S. erects a memorial for those who protested against the war of the same magnitude and grandeur as the magisterial Vietnam War monumment. To those of you on this board who protested against that war and to those of you who served in the military (and to those who did both), I salute you from the depths of my heart. This nation owes the veterans and the protesters alike a huge debt of gratitude that subsequent generations will be hard-pressed to repay.

[starroute]

38. I think it took a while for the police violence to get ramped up

The protests and the police response actually started before the anti-war movement -- with the Berkeley Free Speech movement in late 1964. (The anti-war movement didn't get going until Johnson escalated things the following spring.) What happened in Berkeley was in many ways the prototype for what is happening now -- but though there were mass arrests, the cops weren't busting heads.

The inner city riots of the middle 60's certainly involved plenty of violence on both sides, but I think the real police violence against the anti-war movement only began in late 1967 and only came to general notice with the march on the Pentagon in October 1967 -- the one that produced both the iconic photo of a protester putting a flower in a gun barrel and the Yippie attempt to levitate the Pentagon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement

The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a student protest which took place during the 1964–1965 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and others. In protests unprecedented in this scope at the time, students insisted that the university administration lift the ban of on-campus political activities and acknowledge the students' right to free speech and academic freedom. . . .

On October 1, former graduate student Jack Weinberg was sitting at the CORE table. He refused to show his identification to the campus police and was arrested. There was a spontaneous movement of students to surround the police car in which he was to be transported. Weinberg did not leave the police car, nor did the car move for 32 hours. At one point, there may have been 3,000 students around the car. The car was used as a speaker's podium and a continuous public discussion was held which continued until the charges against Weinberg were dropped.

On December 2nd, between 1,500 and 4,000 students went in to Sproul Hall as a last resort in order to re-open negotiations with the administration on the subject of restrictions on political speech and action on campus. Among other grievances was the fact that four of their leaders were being singled out for punishment. The demonstration was orderly. Some students studied, some watched movies, some sang folk songs. Joan Baez was there to lead in the singing, and to lend moral support. "Freedom classes" were held by teaching assistants on one floor, and a special Channukah service took place in the main lobby. On the steps of Sproul Hall Mario Savio gave a famous speach . . . .

At midnight, Alameda County deputy district attorney Edwin Meese III telephoned Governor Edmund Brown, Sr, asking for authority to proceed with a mass arrest. Shortly after 2 am on December 4th, police cordoned off the building, and at 3:30 am began arresting close to 800 students. Most of the arrestees were bussed to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, about 25 miles away. They were released on their own recognizance after a few hours behind bars. About a month later, the university brought charges against the students who organized the sit-in, resulting in an even larger student protest that all but shut down the university.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_the_Vietnam_War#1967

In October 1967, Stop the Draft Week resulted in major clashes at the Oakland, California induction center, and saw more than a thousand registrants return their draft cards in events across the country. The cards were delivered to the Justice Department on October 20.

In October 1967, three hundred students at the University of Wisconsin attempted to prevent Dow Chemical Company, the maker of napalm, from holding a job fair on campus. The police eventually forced the demonstration to end, but Dow Chemical Company was banned from going on the campus. Three police officers and 65 students were injured in the two-day event.

The next day, October 21, 1967, a large demonstration took place at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. As many as 100,000 demonstrators attended the event, and at least 30,000 later marched to the Pentagon for another rally and an all night vigil. Some, including Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, attempted to "exorcise" and "levitate" the building, while others engaged in civil disobedience on the steps of the Pentagon, interrupted by clashes with soldiers and police. In all, 647 arrests were made. When a plot to airdrop 10,000 flowers on the Pentagon was foiled by undercover agents, these flowers ended up being placed in the barrels of MP's rifles, as seen in some famous photographs. . . .

April 17 <1968> - National media films the anti-war riot that breaks out in Berkeley, California. The over-reaction by the police in Berkeley is shown in Berlin and Paris, sparking reactions in those cities.

[Hamlette]

40. "pin up your hair, take out your earrings, and man the baracades"

is still a rallying cry for my generation.

Some of the protests were peaceful. No violence here in Utah (yes, we protested!). Seems to have been determined by a variety of factors. Local government (in places like San Francisco) and overzealous cops and nat'l guards in other places. The civil rights marches were all pretty much violent in the beginning as a result of a deadly combinantion of the first two reasons (bad cops and bad local government). The Race Beat is a great read about the press and the civil rights protests. Lots of stuff I didn't know/remember.

What surprised me as an adult was how many people resented and hated us. The David Brooks of the world who thought we were spoiled, dirty f---ing hippies out to destroy the country. The backlash is still with us. I guess I thought we'd convinced everyone that sex, peace and rock and roll was the way to go. Hardly. And they festered into "the conservative movement" much aggrieved by what the hippies did in the 60s.

[mulsh]

41. every time Oakland or Berkeley cops teamed with other cops

it was a violent disaster.

Does anyone remember the protests at the Clay St. induction center? I wasn't even eligible for the draft then but I sure do.

http://www.farmworkermovement.us/ufwarchives/sncc/27-November%201967.pdf

Ever hear of James Rector? He was killed by an Alameda County Sheriff on 5/15/69 in a People's Park Riot. Every time I've seen OPS teamed with sheriffs or cops from other forces I've seen heads get busted. Reagan sicked the National Guard on the city of Berkeley, patrols on the streets. Tear gas spraying helicopters and that tear gas jeep they had worked over time.
so the answer from this old fart is yes I've seen this before.

Don't forge the Black Panthers were formed largely to protect people in west Oakland from OPS violence.

[flamingdem]

42. In Washington DC over 10,000 protesters were rounded up in a pen for days

it included a family member.

This has not gotten as intense. In those days "the pigs" were rarely sympathetic. Ask a Black Panther.

[flamingdem]

43. NYT link for that demonstration (it was 10000 not 7000 from other sources)

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0503.html

[Fire Walk With Me]

44. I want to thank everyone who posted...I am rendered speechless by your experiences.

Thank you for sharing them all, and Thank You for your good work! That the powers that be still revile you is the best compliment yet!

[Drew Richards]

45. Oakland was a piddly phase one flex of force...in the 70's they went full bore phase 3

Gas, water cannons, batons, bullets, beatings before during after arrest. denial of due process, sexual assault, the PIGS were having a field day while Nixon hid behind the drapes of the White House.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

46. Eleven African American demonstrators shot by police in Georgia - six of whom died

May 9, 1970, sixteen-year-old Charles Oatman was beaten and tortured by the police in the Richmond County jail in Augusta, Georgia. The police initially claimed that the cause of death was a fall from his bunk. The coroner's report concluded the 104 lb. Oatman had died of a "severe beating" and that his body bore cigarette burn marks where he'd been tortured. Two days later, May 11, 1970, six African Americans were shot dead by the police in the demonstrations over Oatman's tragic death.

What happened at Kent State of course should be remembered. But no one ever brings up the slaughter of African American demonstrators by the police, that happened in the same priod as Kent State.