In "Blackface Is Barred In Mummer's Parade", an article by William G. Weart, the issue of mummers (masked marchers in an annual parade) dressing in "blackface" which was offensive to African-Americans and was being protested by CORE (Congress of Racial Equality). The mummers claimed that there was no intention for belittling African-Americans in wearing Blackface and that it was merely traditional. Threats were made from both sides however (anonymous calls from mummers with death threats, and hints and bombings from rooftops from the protestors). In the end there was an injunction made and the mummers were allowed to march, but not in blackface.
This protest by CORE against injust treatment in relation to race seems much more tame and calm than the protest we were told about in the movie "Berkeley In The Sixties". In the movie, there are many scenes with protestors being sprayed with hoses, dragged down stairs, and even arrested by the police. In the parade protest, there appeared to be little to no physical action taking place (only talk of it), and the problem was resolved before anyone had to even picket the issue. I found it interesting how the police that were involved in breaking up the UC protests were always very against protesting, and so was the police court magistrate involved in the blackface protest. The difference was that the magistrate tried to appease both sides of the issue (after enforcing the injunction though, he resigned, claiming that he was "sick about the whole thing").
Similarly to the CORE protests in UC, threats were thrown everywhere by both sides. In UC, the students were threatened with being kicked out of the school if they didn't stop their protests; a pretty formidable threat, but if your school can't support the actions you're trying to make in the name of others is it even worth staying there (minus the fact that it would be good to recruit one's peers)? The blackface protestors recieved threats not of retracted diplomas, but of death, also pretty formidable. Stanley Branche, the chairman of CORE, was called by either mummers or "cranks", being told not to "step out on the street or [he] won't live till Saturday". In contrast, UC students responded to threats in more protest; moving political tables to other places on campus instead of removing them and standing on top of police cars to halt arrests. These were fairly peaceful retorts to police and government oppression of freedom of speech, but in the blackface protests, CORE members responded more violently. Mass-picketing was threatened, which was not very violent, but could lead to rioting or at least was an irritation. But they also warned that if the blackface parade went through, "blood would spill in the streets". So, even though morals were drastically different, CORE and the people the fought against were not that dissimilar in their strategies towards success.
Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 11:53 pm Post subject: Sit-In at the University of California
On December of 1964, in a mere 12 hours, 796 University of California students were arrested for rallying against rules concerning political activity.
The night before the arrests (Wednesday), 1,000 strikers filled Sproul Hall. These students gathered on the corridors and slept, sang, studied, and talked until 3:10 am (Thursday). At 3:10, the campus chancellor asked the students to leave. When the students refused to leave the Hall, the police began removing students and arresting them.
The police handled males and females differently after the arrest. The males were forced to job down four flights of stairs if they didn't resist the arrest. If they did resist the arrest, the males were dragged down the steps. Women, on the other hand, were dragged into elevators and taken by bus to the county jail. At the jail, women had to pay $75 dollars to be released, and $100 to leave the jail if they had resisted the arrest.
One student who refused to walk out of the Hall was pulled by "the arms for a few feet" (Turner, 1964) and then given to two sheriffs wo dragged her "down the corridor on her back, shouting, 'Female on the way.'" (Turner, 1964)
Several students faced punishments after the strike, including 4 students who were "perhaps expelled" (Turner, 1964)
The Sit-In at the University of California resulted in the tightening of discipline on campus.
In the movie that we watched in class, the rallies that were shown involved a large group of people. Our reading from the other night stated that the more people fighting, the better, as it is important to fight together. The sit-in at the University of California supports this theory. The number of arrests along with the number of students who stood their ground made the rally much stronger.
Additionally, the movie said that many strikers who were being arrested would "go limp" in order to resist the arrests. I wonder what the students were allowed to do while being arrested that wasn't considered resistance. To me, it seems like the main two options are going limp or using violence, both of which qualify as "resisting."
Connection to Christina's Post:
Christina says:
In UC, the students were threatened with being kicked out of the school if they didn't stop their protests; a pretty formidable threat, but if your school can't support the actions you're trying to make in the name of others is it even worth staying there (minus the fact that it would be good to recruit one's peers)?
Similar to the issue of mummers dressing in "blackface," the students who attended the Sit-In at the University of California were punished for their protests. As I said earlier, four students were at risk for being expelled.
To answer Christina's question (maybe it was rhetorical... I don't know), I think that a school should support the actions of its students if they will be beneficial to others. However, sometimes student's opinions are not always in the best interest of everyone, so I can see how schools might not support their students' actions. In this case, though, I think that because the police didn't support the students, the school didn't find it necessary or beneficial to support its students.
I also used an article by Wallace Turner, but mine was a different article, published on the third of december. It was written after the sit in at Sproul Hall had begun but before the police had come in and arrested the students.
It gives a brief summary of the sit in...when it began and how many students were there etc. It also quotes Mario Savio and Dr. Kerr pretty briefly, and, I think, poorly.
The article then moves on to talk about the events and demonstrations leading up to the sit in, although it does not focus a great deal on the motivations behind the demonstrations. It portrays the students more as disgruntled because it is their nature to be unruly and disgruntled rather than disgruntled for a reason.
Wallace quotes Mario Savio as saying, "the time has come to put our bodies on the machine and stop in." The implication in the context and the way he integrates the quote is that Savio is saying that the students should stop the University from running. Which was one of the things the free speech movement tried to do, but only in as much as it would help them regain their freedom of speech. I would argue that the machine that Savio was really referring to in the speech was the proverbial "machine of oppression". But Wallace gives Savio's quote without having any of the reasons why he might have said such a thing, and it makes Savio seem a little petulant. He refers to Dr. Kerr's "pleas" and "pleading" with the students, which is totally misleading. Saying that the administration "pleaded" clouds the issue and makes it seem like the students are the oppressor.
I think it's especially interesting that he wrote about Kerr's "pleas" because it highlights the fundamental shift in power that dissent movements entail. Someone (I forget who) in the documentary talked about how one of the aims of the movements like the free speech movement was to create change by creating a situation that those in power found intolerable. The free speech movement stripped the school administration of its power by making conditions intolerable for the administrators to the point that they were reduced to pleading.
Wallace also does that hilarious "old guy totally disconnected from youth of the day thing" when he talks about the student body with their beards and guitars and (in the case of "at least one male student") bare feet. It's reminiscent of what the people involved in the "hippie" (for lack of a better word) movement in the documentary said about mainstream society at the time. That it wasn't just that the older more mainstream people disagreed with what the young radicals said and did, it was that the beliefs and mindset and values of the younger generation were totally alien and unrelatable to the older generation.
I think what heather said about the whole resisting arrest/going limp thing is really interesting. It really aggravated police and administrators beause it allowed people to resist passively. Simply by their own weight of existence they could make life difficult for the people trying to uphold the status quo. It mimics, i think, they way that the hippie movement dissented/resisted against mainstream society. They didn't really actively DO anything, or at least try to change anything in mainstream society. They just kind of left it, and said "well, we're gonna do our own thing over here". Which is kind of like going limp. They weren't actively resisting anything, they just weren't going along with the status quo either.
“A Rebel on Campus: Mario Savio”
The New York Times, Dec. 9, 1964
This New York Times article, written in the thick of the Berkeley free speech movement, profiled leader Mario Savio. The article is presented as an informative piece, in the context of Savio’s 22nd birthday (the day of publishing), but the author seems to have his own agenda. He deliberately references that Savio “is flat broke” and that “his sandy hair...stands on his head as if it had not been washed in two weeks,” and other characteristics—including subjective ones like the appearance of his hair—that make him sound disconnected and sloppy (oh, them crazy liberals...).
The article discusses the previous day’s meeting (one of the huge ones we saw in the movie) from which Savio was dragged away by police when he tried to speak after the university president. The president, Clark Kerr, said after the fact that had they allowed Savio to speak “we would have been dead.” It was interesting to see this meeting from the other side—in the movie we saw it from the perspective of past Berkeley students who had been involved with the FSM with Mario, and the article quotes exactly the people who were against him. I found that quote particularly intriguing. The fact that the president acknowledges Savio as a threat means that he accepts that he has a somewhat valid point. If he believed that Savio was just blowing smoke, it wouldn’t have hurt the university to let him speak. Given that he not only had Savio dragged off the stage, but then admitted afterwards that letting him speak would have put them in danger, the article and movie read a little differently.
The rest of the article notes Savio’s drop in grades, arrests, skipping class, and suspension since his involvement with politics began. It also discusses his summer spent in Mississippi, which helped lead him to the political path, and was a direct cause (one of many) of his revolt. There, he saw “the minority working their wills over the majority,” and when he returned to school that fall, the university tried to stop students going over to Mississippi to help.
I’ll respond to other summaries in a later post, once more people have posted. Hope that’s okay.
Wait. I just realized that a huge chunk of my analysis just isn’t true. Anywhere I say that Clark Kerr said "we would have been dead” is wrong—Mario Savio actually said that, I think. The article was very ambiguous in its pronouns. Some of the analysis is still valid— just not as extreme (or 100%), if that makes sense. Sorry!
hmm... 5 and a half hours later and no new posts.... oh well. here goes.
from Will’s post:
“He refers to Dr. Kerr's "pleas" and "pleading" with the students, which is totally misleading.”
That’s funny. Kind of the same thing you were saying about the quote. The author of the article shaped the events and quotes to his liking, whether or not it gave an objective view of what was actually going on (but then again, there are no objective views, especially in history—ughh oxymoron). This doesn’t exactly connect to the content of the article as much as the style, but I saw a somewhat more neutral tone in both of my articles. Neither was completely neutral (again—impossible), but they were closer than this guy, who sounds pretty decidedly against the students and their protesting. That said, I did find that the authors of both of my articles made not-exactly-flattering comments about the appearances of the students: one was about how Mario Savio looked disheveled, and the other was (the same "old guy totally disconnected from youth of the day thing” —whoa double Will connection here) about student hippies at a teach-in/sit-in (I still don’t know for sure what that is, anyone?), who were [shockingly] “barefoot”, “corduroy-jacketed” (direct quote, really), etc. So overall they both had a slight negative connotation. I guess that was necessary in order not to be grouped in as supporters of these “radical politics”. According to the university at least, protesting on campus affected everyone: “The university cannot be used as a base for a tax on society.” (movie) Unfortunately I didn’t write down who said that, but it was during the free speech movement, headed by Mario Savio, that set off the entire chain of student political activism at UC Berkeley. Clearly, the school was not in favor of it, but I am beginning to get the sense that most reporters and writers weren’t too eager to be associated with it either.
I am really sorry for the overuse of parentheses in this response. I don’t know how they all got in there.
12 War Protesters seized here as Youthful Radicals prepare for more demonstrations today. November 5, 1968: John Kifner
Overall there were 9 people arrested for stopping the police from arresting an Army deserter who they had granted "sanctuary". They also had protested against the Dow Chemical Company for trying to recruit people.
At about 7:30 9 students were arrested after they had occupied a building to protest the DOW Company. The students were a part of a group that supported sanctuary for Pvt. William Brakefield, the man who had deserted. These students had gone into a building and stayed there, "occupying" it until the campus officials called the police. They were arrested because the building they were occupying was where DOW was going to set up a temporary recruiting station. A short while later, another student was taken into custody and charged for disorderly conduct. Finally, the police apprehended the Pvt. William Brakefield.
So I connected this to the movie because to me, it didnt seem like the students were doing anything really bad. They were just sitting in a building where the DOW was recruiting people. And there were only 12 of them, which isnt exactly a huge threat, especially when they are not being violent. I also think that this connects to the movie in that both were fueled by scared college deans. They are afraid that this will get out of hand or that it will put their college in a bad light, but, usually, them doing things like this do more harm than the protests themselves.
OK, so to connect this with all of the other posts:
Basically all of us talked about protests in schools, mainly the one in the movie. Now, I know thats not much of connection but it brings me to my question. Why were there so many protests focused around schools? I realize not all of them were but it seems like there were a lot.
And to Annabel: sorry i didnt get this here like 5 minutes ago.....
I forgot to write the name of the article my post was about so it is:
796 Students Arrested as Police Break Up Sit-In at U. of California
by Wallace Turner 1964
Connection to both Annabel and Will's post:
I also read the article that Will did and the section where Turner described the "hippies" was really interesting, especially because it was one of the last few paragraphs of the article. Because of its placement, I finished reading the article with the idea of the hippies sitting in the hallway in my head, which (in my opinion) made me focus on a minor detail in the article instead of remembering the main points.
Annabel said that the rest of "the article notes Savio’s drop in grades, arrests, skipping class, and suspension since his involvement with politics began." This reminded me of the 796 arrested students article that I posted about, as a theme seemed to re-appear in it. Savio's consequences since his involvement with politics illustrate the goals of the 796 students, along with their expectations, as they had planned from the beginning to sit in Spoul Hall until removed by the police. I wonder if because the police were arresting so many people, they were losing power. Their rules and commands seemed to lose meaning after a while..
Protests Added To Campus Scene by David Boroff
New York Times, Jan 13 1965
This article mainly discussed about the shift between the civil rights movement in 30’s and 60’s. And the author saw the student movement in Berkeley over 60 as a significantly shifting point because it changes the movements from working class students to middle- class young men and women. Among the article which we have read before, it shows the civil disobediences in factories in the early 1900 century were based on labors. But the ones in 60’s form a new phenomenon of counterculture and dissenting.
After IWW’s success on fighting labor’s rights, people separate into different little groups based on different demands, such as, the equality on gender, racial and workers. As the article mansions “the locus of protest was in the East in proletarian schools like City Colleges.” This indicates the fact that the core of civil rights movement during 30’s used to focusing at East coast, and formed by city college students who are fighting for racial equality. But in Berkeley’s case, it changes this phenomenon to a wider region which forms by activist and graduate students. Like in the video, we have seen lots of activist and Berkeley students involved in the sit-in, which proofs in variety of involvement on different groups of people.
According to the article, it claims that “Unlike the student movement of the thirties, campus protest today is essentially nonideological.” From my memory in my WAR class, one goal in the civil rights movement is to fill the jails with their people, so that the government will see their demands. Moreover, the sit-in used to be used by labors, for example, the movements formed by IWW. But the Berkeley students break this little box, which enlighten others people in the society.
In responding to Will, faith on their beliefs makes a huge difference. In the video, we have seen a lot of people who were pull out from the floors, but they keep their bodies so steady on order to show their persistence on their beliefs. Also, those Berkeley students point out the problems which make by being quiet. This dissentient movement makes the society know the problem for being silent and enlighten more people to face the problems.
Negroes Intensify Their Demand for Jobs
This article is about discrimination among black workers in the 60’s by the many companies. The unemployment rate among blacks compare to whites were twice higher and one of five black youths between the ages of 16 and 21, cannot find a job. Although, many blacks did get jobs by the influence of civil rights movements, statistically it did not show much different. President John F. Kennedy said in his civil rights message, “Negro unemployment will not be noticeably diminished in this country,”
For that reason, President Kennedy instituted a civil rights program that contained provisions for job training. Therefore, 11 companies have joined its plans with hiring 60,0000 new employees. Despite the many job spaces, blacks only won 3 percent of the jobs. Many corporations only provide minimum job spaces for blacks to avoid the demands of the civil rights groups and the Government and they make no efforts to recruit blacks for their management training programs.
The article says many companies discriminate against blacks which led numerous unemployment rates among blacks. This relates to the reading “Theo Story of American Freedom”, Martin Luther King is fighting for the equality. “In the mid-1960s, economic issues rose to the forefront of the civil rights agenda. With black unemployment two and a half times that of whites and average black family income little more than half the white norm, the movement groped for ways to “make freedom real substantive” for black Americnas. The civil rights movements’ groups continuously fought for fair and justice in the U.S society.
To respond to hlipkin and awang’s posts, the way students protest was interesting. It was smart to passively resist federal troops by not moving at all or just sit in. Other part I remember was when protesters were arrested and hold into a police car, other dissenters surrounded the police car and sit around, while others go on top of the police car. As a result, police could not do anything or to move other places. There is nothing to afraid if people are united.
New Acting Chancellor at Berkeley Pledges ‘Utmost Fairness’ to Students
By Lawrence E. Daviess Jan 4, 1965
The article was about the new chancellor, Martin Meyerson, promised students fairness in administration of campus rules. However, Mr. Meyerson addressed another points of his in a conference, “that I believe civil disobedience is warranted as a last resort in our democracy…But civil disobedience is warranted only when there is no recourse to reasonable deliberation, Avenues of recourses are now available on this campus.” He declared that further civil disobedience on campus was unwarranted. Mario Savio, the leader of the Free Speech Movement couldn’t accept the rule, and he claimed “the whole campus government is autocratic.” Students from the Free Speech Movement asked for a meeting with Mr. Meyerson before he proposes the new rules to the Academic Senate. Although the committee of the Free Speech Movement met with the Academic Senate (the article didn’t really mention details or results of the meeting), many university administrative leaders believed that the students would oppose against the new rules.
In the article, the school seemed to have taken a step back and compromised with the students, but what Mario Savio said reminds me of a scene in the movie. I couldn’t remember much, it was at a conference or something, Mario Savio was trying to go on the stage and speak, but the head of the school or someone else refused, Savio insisted to speak but ended up dragging away by the police. What if the school wasn’t doing any compromising? What if they were just doing this to calm down the angry crowd? Connecting the movie and the article, I felt like the school wasn’t trying to give the students what they want, the school was tricking the society and the students. The new rules were put up in a way that showed the school cared about their students, but they actually favored the school.
I agreed with what Alex said about the school stopping students from protest harmed themselves more than the students did. The images of seeing students being pulled out of some places without resistance are very strong, it makes the school and the police look bad. What crime will they be accused of from sitting and studying in a place? But it also makes me wonder, I believed that most people will viewed it the same way that Alex and I did, then why would the school do this? Did it have anything to do with the government?
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