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california history - California Historical Society

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Bay Area—North Beach and Haight-Ashbury—and also had belonged to a variety of antiwargroups, including Fair Play for Cuba Committee,VDC, and the War Resisters League. Lyon was amedical student, while Goldberg and Bardackewere both prominent political activists. 17Goldberg had worked for civil rights in Mississippiand had participated in the 1964 FreedomSummer voter registration project along withan estimated thirty to sixty UC Berkeley studentvolunteers. Back on campus that fall, these FreedomSummer veterans were confronted by theadministration’s order rescinding student organizations’rights to pass out information, recruitvolunteers, or solicit funds at the campus gates.Students organized the Free Speech Movement(FSM) to oppose these regulations, which finallywere revoked on December 18, 1964, followingtwo massive sit-in protests and a student strikethat won most teaching assistants’ support andofficial faculty backing. 18Goldberg served on the FSM steering committeeand in the spring of 1965 was its only principalmember to extend enthusiastic support to theorganization’s unofficial offshoot, the FilthySpeech Movement. This bizarre footnote to theFSM had begun when a student was arrested bypolice on the steps of the student union for wearinga sign that displayed one four-letter synonymfor sexual intercourse. In response, an “obscenity”rally was organized, with Goldberg as themajor speaker. Turnout was sparse; in the eyes ofthe vast majority of the faculty and students, theFilthy Speech Movement discredited the FSM.Goldberg, who earlier was sentenced to a 120-dayjail term and suspended from the university forhis involvement in the FSM, received an additionalthirty-day jail sentence and was expelledfrom the university for his support of the FilthySpeech Movement. 19Bardacke shared Goldberg’s commitment topolitical action; like Goldberg, his political activitieshad provoked the wrath of university officials.A former honors student and football player atHarvard, Bardacke had completed three yearsof graduate work in political science at Berkeleybefore his suspension stemming from his indictmentfor conspiracy as a member of the so-calledOakland 7. The group had been accused of plottingnew tactics, later termed “trashing,” duringStop the Draft Week, October 16–20, 1967, at theOakland Draft Induction Center. “Trashing” latertook on other meanings, including the WeatherUnderground’s symbolic bombing of the toiletat the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and burningcampus ROTC buildings. The Stop the DraftWeek methods, however, were milder—pushingunlocked cars, potted trees, and movable benchesinto intersections—but still represented an obviousbreak from past nonviolence in favor of disruptivestreet demonstrations. In describing theimpact of the Stop the Draft protest, Bardackerevealed his feelings about youth and America:“We said to America that at this moment in <strong>history</strong>we do not recognize the legitimacy of Americanpolitical authority. Our little anarchist partywas meant to convey the most political of messages:we consider ourselves political outlaws.The American government has the power to forceus to submit but we no longer believe that it hasthe authority to compel us to obey.” 20The other two important park planners, Big BillMiller and Super Joel Tornabene, were membersof Stew Albert’s hip-radical fusion. Miller hadbeen active in the Berkeley student movementsince FSM days, during which he was convictedof trespassing and resisting arrest for his role inthe December 2, 1964, Sproul Hall sit-in, fined$150, and given a one-year probation. He quicklybecame involved with the VDC and in 1966 wasarrested twice with Albert—initially for an Aprilantiwar march from Telegraph Avenue to CityHall and later for a November sit-in at the studentunion in protest of the university’s consentto use of the facility for naval recruitment while1<strong>California</strong> History • volume 88 number 1 2010

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