The People, the Soul of the Strike
A Work in Progress
For the Commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of the 1968 SF State
Black Student Union (BSU)/ Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) Student Led Strike
Preface
The Archive Committee of the 40th Commemoration
is working on compiling an extensive historical archive
on the strike. This project is collecting briefer profiles
and reflections from strike veterans. We asked strike
veterans to speak briefly on three questions—their role
in the strike, what most resonates for them today, and
any comment about the personal sacrifices strikers
made in the struggle.
This document is a work-in-progress that includes only
those interviewed to date.
Please fill out the enclosed sheet with your information
so that we may add you to this growing document.
Table of contents
Strike Veterans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Faculty, Administration, and Staff Veterans . .
In Memoriam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Contributing your own reflections. . . . . . . . .. .
Dhameera Ahmad aka Carlotta Simon
I entered SFSU in 1968 as an EOP student. My family was low income, I was the oldest of 5 children and raised by a single mother after my parents divorced. My high school counselor did not share my opinion of myself; she thought I did not belong in college.
I supported the Leadership and carried out strategies to create a very uncomfortable environment for those who did not support us. We attended long meetings to plan our tactics. We had ideological struggles within our ranks.
The experience of the strike was a protracted struggle. I did not know when I would be able to return to class which I missed enormously given the astute faculty in the EOP program. It was a sacrifice that had to be made to improve the education for people of color and those interested in challenging the University to provide a relevant curriculum.
I am grateful to have worked with such an outstanding group of individuals in the BSU and TWLF. The opportunity to work with Dr. Nathan Hare on the first Black Studies Department in the nation was a privilege. The College of Ethnic Studies has evolved into a viable area of scholarship and critical thinking producing young scholar warriors around the country. Other universities have modeled their programs from SFSU Ethnic Studies.
Jack Alexis
The strike was led by a central committee of which I was a member. I was also a member of the Black Students' Union and I led discussions in Black Philosophy in the Black Studies programme.
I felt the pain of US students who were being guided by the brilliant light of their potential. Although I am not an American, I easily identified with the principle of "No compromise in the demand for space and resources to educate African people in the diaspora and beyond"
I've always been grateful for the opportunity to be part of the strike at SF State. The only thing time has done is confirm the family that I gained from the strike..
Legacy? The strike was a rallying call; an opportunity to advance the understanding of democracy; an opportunity to instill the audacity to hope that one day the journey of Black Studies would realise an outpouring of skills that propel our communities forward.
The strike was an impetus that moved people far and wide into action. The strike provided black women the opportunity to be beyond "Black is beautiful". Out of this experience, Black women moved to realize their potential beyond their own expectations.
I remember a Wednesday when the police moved onto campus. We had expected them, yet their arrival and actions threatened to escalate the confrontation into an armed battle. We stood our ground—women and men. I learnt that day to appreciate my sisters. It became clear to me that day that history and its important events were nothing more than a platform and that the defining mission of Black Studies was visionary.
Roger Alvarado
I was spokesman for the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF), along with Ron Quidachay, and I was also a member of the Latin American Students Organization (LASO). Two years earlier (1965-66 school year), I wrote a proposal calling for high school students to be admitted on a nontraditional basis, in order to acknowledge the special circumstances of poverty. The proposal was accepted, resulting in the first Educational Opportunity Program.
I’ve also worked on the Legal Defense Committee for Los Siete, and I’ve worked to help expand La Escuelita Elementary School (in Oakland) from K-2 to K-6 grades.
I’ve always appreciated how much people gave—their support, their contributions. So many people were ready to go, and ready to do things for an extended period of time. Amazing.
Susan Bethell-Hansen
Besides my involvement in the strike I also worked with SDS. I worked to challenge the use of class rankings for the draft.
After SFSU, I went to Southern California where I continued to organize against the draft.
I’m convinced that what we were doing was the right thing. We have to keep trying. Many of us went to college to learn how to be professionals, and to improve on our parents’ station in life. And when we got to college we took a look around and asked questions. We brought about Black Studies.We asked questions about women’s issues. We ended the war! And Barack Obama might be the next President!
Laureen Chew
I was a student striker. I was glad to meet other students who were discussing the same questions about their identity and their education.
After the Strike, I became reinvolved in San Francisco’s Chinatown in a whole new way, with much more awareness of ways that I could help out. Among other things, I volunteered tutoring recent immigrants. The Strike and my volunteer work influenced my choice of occupation—I chose to pursue a teaching career as a bilingual.
I am still impressed that we managed to become this group that had such widespread influence, and that we became something larger than ourselves. You know that saying, “One out of many”? I think we really tried to live it!
Hari Dillon
I was a founding member, with Jesus Contreras, of one of the groups that comprised the Third World Liberation Front. I was on the Central Committee of the TWLF and one of the leaders of the 1968 strike.
What resonates for me is the strength and power of the strike, the profound sense of community that our struggle created and that we shared then and to this day, and the ultimate victory we achieved, which led to the creation of the only College of Ethnic Studies in the country and to the creation of the trailblazing admissions program that is now EOP.
We made many sacrifices and endured the brutality of the powerful forces attempting to supress us. Arrested several times, I was given a death threat by the commander of the Tactical Squad if I continued in the strike. While serving time in San Bruno I was beaten, stripped naked, and put in the hole. Our son was born while I was in San Bruno, and I could not be there for our firstborn, Jeff. But all of us in the strike drew sustenance from the deep and profound sense of community and commitment that our struggle gave us.
Roy Harrison
When I first got arrested, I distinctly remember how the Legal Defense Committee (LDC) was waiting for me at the Police Station; they are the reason that I never made it into the cell. So the LDC was itself a major backbone of the Strike, and it was also the very reason that I stayed involved with the organization behind the protests. I was appointed by the TWLF to be Chair of the LDC early in the Strike (probably December 1968 – September 1969). We did fundraising and ran workshops for the defendants.
I am still unsure whether current students of color are engaging other ethnic studies besides that of their own groups.
We didn’t address many of the various interethnic, intercultural tensions within our own coalition.
Margaret Leahy
I was involved in SDS (Students for a Democratic Society). During the strike, including the mass arrest, I was in charge of bailing people out of jail.
Coming back to SFSU to teach, I see the legacy of the strike in the big demographic shifts in the student population since 1967. And at State there is a commitment to social justice here and around the world. I see that commitment in many of the students I’ve met.
The experience was transformative—for me, in a positive way, though not so well for others. We need to remember both our many comrades who've died, and also those many who were traumatized, damaged or who just wished for more support during the strike and its aftermath.
John Levin
At the time of the strike I was a member of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), a Maoist party that attracted many students across the country who were angry, indeed outraged, at the war in Vietnam, and racism here at home. I was drawn to PLP by its boldness and militancy, its multiracial makeup and its revolutionary outlook and perspective. I was also a member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Our strategy was basically two-fold: build the Vietnam anti-war movement on campus as well as major off-campus actions like Stop The Draft Week, and educate students and provide support for the struggle against racism on campus and beyond.
We tried to move our fellow students to see racism as both a great moral injustice as well as an ideology used to divide and conquer the people—white from African American, Latino, Asian, and Native American—to maintain the hegemony and power of the existing power structure.
SDS's role in the strike was to organize the white students on campus to strike in solidarity with the BSU/TWLF demands—in much the same way unions strike in solidarity with other unions. Our strategy was to build a broad united front in which all those who supported the strike could participate at whatever level their "comfort zone" allowed.
We also put out a call for support to our brothers and sisters from campuses throughout the Bay Area and California as well as labor unions and community groups where we had contacts. And they responded tremendously, organizing car pools and buses to join our picket lines and mass rallies. Nationally, we sent representatives from our speakers' bureau to spread the word about the strike.
It was an honor to be part of the leadership of the Strike at San Francisco State and I think for many of us who participated, it is a touchstone that to a great degree has guided our lives.
Sharon Martinas
Even before the strike, in 1966, when Stokely Carmichael implored white activists to “go and organize against racism in your own communities”, I saw what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
I got involved with the Workstudy Program, where I recruited students to participate in community work, and also recruited faculty to give students academic credit for that community work. Before the 1968 Strike, I became Coordinator of the Workstudy Program. After the Strike ended, the TWLF Central Committee appointed me to coordinate the Legal Defense Committee for arrested strikers.
From 1993 thru 2005 I coordinated the “Challenging White Supremacy” workshops –an anti-racist training program for predominantly white social justice activists. From Hurricane Katrina (8/29/05) to the present, I participate in solidarity work for Katrina survivors.
Bette Matsuoka
I was a student during the SFS Strike and member of the Asian American Political Alliance. I was 19 years old at the time and held strong convictions about the civil rights and anti-war movements. In my opinion, the Strike was a vehicle that confirmed the need to correct social injustices for people of color within the institutionalized educational system. I wasn't a major role player during the Strike and my parents didn't know I was part of the movement until my picture (showing me with an anti-Hayakawa picket sign) appeared on the front page of a San Francisco newspaper. My mother gave me two choices, I was to remove myself from this anarchy or I was on my own. I chose the latter.
Tomasita Medal
I was Co‐founder and Coordinator of the San Francisco State Legal Defense Committee.
The issue that we addressed with our Strike, that state educational institutions are designed to instill the Euro‐centric capitalist world view, applies throughout the society we live in.
Having participated in the creation of the School of Ethnic Studies, we realized that change is possible. I have applied that lesson by participating in the successful fight to change the name of Army Street to Cesar Chavez Street; the successful fight to keep the deYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park, where sacred ancestral indigenous objects can reside in peace rather than a commercial district; and our ongoing campaign to make the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco‐‐which belong to the People of San Francisco‐‐treat communities of color as equal human beings. This would include substantial diversity of class and ethnicity among their Board of Trustees, curatorial staff, and interns; the purchase and permanent display of greater amounts of art by contemporary artists of color; and timely outreach via the ethnic media.
Coalition building is key.
Nancy Mims
I lived in the dormitory and along with other “Dormies”, we were able to provide access, or assist with activities on campus because we were ‘supposed’ to be on campus; or we could reserve a room in the dorms for Political Education classes. I also worked closely with the BSU Central Committee, planning rallies, leafleting, and along with my best friend, Marilyn Theriot (who was arrested during the strike) we worked every day. Often, we knew we were at risk as much from the police, as we were from those who wanted to stop the most powerful student movement of our time. One of the tenets we accepted was that we were privileged to be in college and as such, we owed our communities. I also served as a coordinator for Black Panther Party Breakfast for Children Program, held at Sacred Heart Church, worked as a tutor in our community center, researched, etc.