Danny Glover on EOP and 1960s Activism

Hi, I'm Danny Glover and I'd like to briefly talk to you about one of the most successful programs in the state of California, the Educational Opportunity Program. During the past 30 years, over 250,000 students have entered and graduated from California State Universities with the help of EOP. EOP will continue to provide access to higher education. Hey, everyone has a shot at this opportunity, so prove me wrong and call the number on your screen. EOP's doors are open now. That's right, we're bapping out the hips for you on this gorgeous Monday morning. It's going to be another hot one, so you people heading out to work or school, be sure to dress cool. cool you off just thinking about those boys at the beach. Of course, the Beach Boys. This one's for Mary and Eddie, a couple of lovebirds starting the first day back to school at San Fernando Valley State College. Get to class, you crazy kids. I come in late at night, and in the morning I just lay in bed. Oh, honey, you look so fine. And I know I couldn't take this time. For you to ride, Stories today, South Vietnam, heavy casualties reported and renewed fighting. On the home front, civil rights leader Martin Luther King led marches in rural Mississippi. For the times, they are a-changin'. Something happening here, but what it is ain't exactly clear. There's a man with a gun over there Telling me I've got to beware I think it's time we stop Children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down There was a mood on campus in the late 1960s that was of an extraordinary nature. I think that a good many of us felt that it was rather incumbent upon us to rebel. What it means was to not accept things as they were and to at least investigate them if not to change them. I think most of us came to school most of us who were involved in any way came to school every day expecting something to happen. I can remember always having a spare dime in my pocket and the telephone number of a lawyer written and Della Blink on the palm of my hand because I didn't know if I'd get arrested when I came into school or not. Students basically were questioning the Vietnam War, the race relations in this society, more broadly the whole nature of this society. Lingering aspects of Victorian sexual mores, politics and political behavior, questioning Democrats, questioning Republicans. This was an era when just trying to Turning on a television set, one could flip from Leavitt to Beaver to men landing on the moon to piles of bodies in Vietnam. It was a terribly confused and complex time. The thing that made it most complex and most confusing and most dangerous, particularly the young people who might have to fight it, was the Vietnam War. Vietnam changed everything about the 1960s. The war in Vietnam always loomed in the background, and not so much even in the background. background but in the forefront as well. Many of our students were faced with the direct threat of being drafted and being sent to a fight in a war that was growing increasingly unpopular. Always keep in mind the perspective of what was happening nationally. The Selma, Alabama thing, the beatings of blacks and civil rights activists in Mississippi, the assassinations, the assassinations especially of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy coming within. A very short time with each other, this galvanized the campus. As that occurred, of course, more and more students began to get active and attempt to get people active on this campus, and more and more did become active, and as they did, it began to affect their lives. everywhere on campus. There were meetings. There were people talking, haranguing, standing up here and there. One of my early recollections of getting involved while a student here at Valley State College was the movement around the civil rights movement in the South. And many of us were involved in solidarity movements of getting food and sending money down South to the struggle around King and his movement. And a lot of us were affected deeply by that. At the end of my first semester teaching at Northridge, I received among my finals a blue book from a student who was very marginal in the course. He might pass, he might fail. And on the last page of that final, I found the plea, Please don't flunk me. If you do, they'll send me to Vietnam. In 66 and 67 on this campus, SDS had been formed, and we were doing educational work around the draft and around the lack of student deferments. This is where it all really began. This is where the whole shot rang out. And we began to build an anti-war sentiment on this campus and an anti-draft sentiment. on this campus. And our SDS was a multi-issue group, a multi-issue organization. It didn't just deal with the war and things abroad, but we were involved with a campus coalition dealing with equal opportunity programs for minorities and poor students. And one of the things that surprised me, really astonished me when I came here, was the fact that the campus was virtually lily white. The year before I arrived, there were 23 black students at Northridge. There were seven black students at Northridge. There were seven black students Mexican-Americans. Valley State had a reputation of being a white citadel. Minority people came to Valley State to deliver services and then leave. It had the reputation of being an extremely racist institution and that Minority students shouldn't even think of matriculating here. I think the attitude of faculty members on this campus towards minority students, particularly towards blacks and Chicanos in the late 60s, ranged, that is, there was a wide range of reactions. I know on the basis of some of the anonymous notes I got when I became sort of a figure in this, that there was racism. out and out, simple, straightforward racism from faculty members. To be a change agent, which is how I define myself, and my mission coming here was to change. So I had an academic obligation and responsibility, but I also had a social commitment. That whole question around black brought forth images of great fear, apparently, in white folk. So when it became very necessary to organize a black student union here on the campus, I went to the Associated Students Office. And I told them I would like to organize a group of students on campus. And I told them I wanted to organize a black student union. And it was like, uh, what? And in fact, when the black student union chartered itself, some of the SDS people had to sign the charter because there wasn't even enough names to meet the school's requirement. We were involved with the black student union and METCHA around getting funding for equal opportunity programs for the campus. The windows and doors of our campus were closed. opportunity weren't there there was no way to get into the system and we were politically sophisticated enough to know that someone and people in certain positions were holding those doors and windows of opportunity closed to the American dream our position was I am an American. My people have been here, labored, 400 plus years, and you mean to tell me you won't give me equal access to an education? I think again in the 1960s we started to see ourselves as... as part of groups of people in this country who had felt left out. All throughout 67 and early 68, spring, we had lobbied with the student organizations to try to get money to, in effect, form scholarships. And the largest block of money found for scholarships to bring minority students on this campus was voted through our lobbying through the student government. And even the administration didn't match the students'money that they put into the program. So by 68, remember November of 68 was the fall semester, the second semester of that year, we had about, oh, probably 130 to 150 black students and anywhere from 50 to 75 Chicano students on the campus. campus at that time who'd been recruited by students. In the summer of 68, moving into the fall of 68, a number of promises made by the administration were broken. And in fact, it looked as if we were going to be moving backwards in regards to opening up the campus to minorities. My recollections of November 4th are, well, my recollections are a little confused. They're confused because the day was very confusing. What I remember quite vividly is suddenly the fourth floor of the administration building, the news swept through campus, the fourth floor of the administration building had been occupied by a number of black students and that presumably certain administrators had been taken hostage. And I remember very vividly a very, very huge crowd standing in front of the administration building and a discussion there with the hostage acting president and some of the blacks over what had happened. Now my recollections I know now, I mean I can't remember just when I discovered that I know what had happened in a general way on November 4th, that the black students had been trying to deal with what they perceived as a case of racism among the coaches. There was a freshman football game and we had some black students that were playing. One of the students, something happened on the field and one of the assistant coaches or something literally kicked this young man in his behind literally kicked him in his behind on the field in front of his teammates and spectators an altercation small altercation ensued but it was cooled out and it was decided that a meeting had to be held with the athletic director once organized the black student union became the the ombudsman, if you will, for the protest, the complaints of various minority students. When a student would make an allegation of some act of prejudice or discrimination, then the Ballot Student Union would then follow this up. And a meeting was called for that following morning. And at that meeting, This gentleman had a very, very nasty, nasty attitude. He was very condescending. He had an attitude, who the hell are you to think that you can come and demand something? from me do you know who I am and he had to be rudely awakened that he was not dealing with the Negro student who walked around this campus very passively but he was dealing with a new student a black student who were about change they were told there that the the that administrator told them that they that he could not deal with them deal with the issue that it was a matter for the president presumably whereupon the black students surrounded uh this person and said well then apparently that we'll we'll go to the administration building then and see the appropriate administrator. They apparently felt that that was simply the last straw. They had been buffeted from here to there and told to go here and told to go there and finally they blew. What happened was students left the PE building, went to the administration building along with a couple of the staff members from the PE department to meet with the president of the campus here to carry forth these allegations of racism and prejudice. When they arrived at the administration building, they were told that the president was not on campus and therefore he would not be able to see them. Because we had been given the runaround like this on any number of occasions, the students just simply said, well if he's not on campus, we will wait until he comes. ...back. And we won't wait along, we will all wait together. As it turns out, he was on campus, as the students suspected. He was brought to the room, and when he was brought there, a number of demands, if you will, were laid. before him, including the number one investigation of this coach who had committed this act of discrimination, as well as a number of other things, but most notably the expansion of the EOP program, the creation of ethnic studies program, the recruiting of minority teachers on this campus, and an investigation of the hiring practices of the campus. We learned about this while we were at a rally, we meaning the Students for Democratic Society. We were rallying against the war at that time because the elections were taking place. And we were told that they had done this. Since we had been part of the coalition around these fundings, we thought it was incumbent to support this action. It was a non-violent takeover of the administration building. and at that point we cut off our rally, we called people from who were in classes in various areas and we went over and we non-violently sat in on the first floor on the steps, not blocking anybody in solidarity. We were all shocked because the first stories that came out was that one of our faculty had been kidnapped by, or several of our faculty had been kidnapped by student activists, that one had actually had a knife held at his throat, that a number of students, of women secretaries were harassed, locked into a room, held against their will, and things of that sort. To this very day, I don't know how much of that is true. There were just too many stories and rumors. What you had was a campus that had a core of people, maybe 100, 150 by that time, which was growth from the earlier years, plus the black and Chicano students who were beginning to be pretty consciously aware of what race was. racism meant, but you had a large group of students who really didn't understand what was happening, and their first response was hostility. We, in effect, took the responsibility of educating white students, and by taking that responsibility, obviously in that situation, the first step was to explain to them what was happening, and that's how we got involved in November 4th. These negotiations were going on, and we stayed there until we found out they had reached a settlement, a signed agreement. There'd be no retaliation. that people, they were going to get into the funding of the ELP, they were going to set up a process where that would take place. Initially on November 4th, there were no arrests made because part of the list, the demands that the president signed was an agreement that none of the students would be charged with any kinds of criminal activity resulting out of this. So then we were, the students were allowed to leave the administration building. But immediately upon doing so, the president recanted and said, that the only reason he signed these things was because of duress. And lo and behold, the next day, felony warrants were put out for every black student that was involved, including some that weren't even there because just they hadn't seen that they were black. The police occupied this campus for a week after this event, and they had a fistful of John Doe warrants for arrest of black students, which had no names on them. And all of the SDS people and the people from the Hillel Council and other people who were there, it wasn't just SDS who were basically white students, they were also going to be arrested. From then on we had a state of siege around here in some respects. They had a great many... Police and FBI and coming into our classes with guns and with walkie-talkies and we weren't sure what was being recorded and what wasn't being recorded and where it was going. But the black students had... to do on the eve of November 4th and for the next three or four days we had to leave the campus entirely and hide out in various churches in Pacoima and in Los Angeles while we tried to work out a way in which we could could deal with this thing legally. What ends up happening as a result of this, a number of several of the black LAPDs who worked for the human relations department acted as a go between and met with us in the churches, convinced us that if all of the students would turn themselves in simultaneously, that they would not be beaten, brutalized, harassed, et cetera. For all of the students who had received these John Doe under warrants, then turn themselves in at the Van Nuys Police Department en masse. Because the students involved in the so-called takeover of the administration building had been arrested and were in jail, a number of the students who were arrested were arrested in the same way. A number of faculty members, including myself, had organized a bail bond committee. I was part of a group that tried to get our students out on bail and assist them with legal advice. I helped raise funds. from faculty and from interested community people to bail students out. That period of time I can remember in the morning getting up in the morning and feeling as though I was going off to fight evil. It was a clear distinction of what was right and what was wrong. Quite a few white students had come to the point of understanding what our cause was, what it meant, and that we did not want to take over the university, did not want to take over the country. We wanted in. Time has come today. Young hearts can go their way. Can't put it off another day. I don't care what others say. They think we don't listen anyway Time has come today Hey! We educated the students on this campus. We stayed up all night printing leaflets so that 7 o'clock in the morning the next day we had maps of the campus. We knew which entrance to the campus had how many students and how much time, when was the best time to leaflet, and we... we hit this campus and every student on this campus knew what was going on every day. There was an organization, we call ourselves at that time the November 4th committee, but they basically consisted of a number of students that were opposed to the racism and the discrimination on the campus. And we continued to work together with other groups on the campus that were progressive minded. semester continued, frustration started to build up again because of the lack of progress and the difficulties in making any kind of headway with the administration at that particular time. By January 8th, on that particular day, a great number of students had gathered at the open forum. We had proposed to march from the free speech area up to the administration building and then at the the administration building. There would be a series of small speeches and then the leadership would go in and attempt to meet with the powers that be. There were about 2,000 to 3,000 people who marched from this open forum area to the administration building to lay our demands again upon the administration. We weren't going there to sit in or anything. We marched to the building. It became almost a ritual through the year before to come up here, shout at the administration, you know, let us in, support the 10 demands, etc., etc., almost ritualistic. Except on this day, things have changed because there were community people there as well. The outside world was there. We're in front of the administration building. About three or four of us spoke. We attempt to enter the administration building, and the door is locked. So we make a couple more speeches, and then we say that just the leadership is going to go in. When we opened that door, when I opened that door, it was wall-to-wall police. We didn't even know that they were on campus. They had parked a bus in the back of the administration building, and the police were waiting. As soon as we stepped in, they grabbed us and began to beat us with the batons. And then they immediately slammed the door shut, and I was holding the door. Meanwhile, people walking in and seeing the beatings immediately realized they were next. So they tried to come out, and I'm tugging on the door, and the police are tugging on the inside of the door. But I remember it stopped hurting. You know, they just couldn't hurt me anymore. I was just so angry, and then I blacked out for a little bit. Somebody down the line, whether it was one of our people or whether it was a police agent, we don't know, but they picked an ashtray through a window, and the glass broke. Well, that was like a trigger. And the police just came charging out of the administration building, clubs swinging. I'm number one in the line. I'm figuring I'm going to get my butt kicked. And they charged past me, you know, they looked at my blue eyes, and they charged right past me and were beating up black students who were 20, 30 feet behind me. Then they realized, you know... They knew who the leadership was and they realized that there were a few of us close in so they started closing on us. We hightailed it through the crowd but luckily racism operated to our advantage. They bought us about ten seconds while they were beating the hell out of some of the black students. And then everyone dispersed and this place looked, cops were chasing people, it was unbelievable. One of the students, I'll never forget it, all of us are shackled on this bus, and this one student, his name was Sheldon, apparently one of the police had taken up a time and I saw it in film in court. Later, his head was down on the ground and this police, it was two of them, one of the policemen took his baton straight down and jammed it in his eye. And this young man's eye, we thought he was losing it. It was, and they wouldn't give him any medical treatment. None of us. And we're bleeding. And I could hear, you could hear these guys enjoying what they were doing. There was no question about what's your intent, why you're doing what you're doing. It was about, I want to inflict pain on your black ass. And they had their day, and they did it. And they did this in front of all of these folks who were there non-violently, and some of them came just for curiosity's sake. Well, the next day... we had scores of people wanting to join what we were doing. We met that night and the faculty meanwhile met that night and was saying what's happening to our campus basically and big, big name faculty by that time not just you know faculty were sympathetic to us. saying basically the campus is breaking down over this issue and it's got to be dealt with. The administration responds zilch. The faculty members say to the administration wait a minute, you know, if we don't stop this there's going to be bloodshed on the campus meaning the police are going to kill somebody. It had become so bad by that time and the potential for violence everyone felt was so great or that things were coming to some kind of head that that night I believe it was the night of January 8th, a big meeting was held at a church in Pacoima of everyone, all the blacks and those who were in support of them, to sort of chart what could be done and what should be done. We had reserved the free speech area for the following morning, January 9th, for a meeting. January 9th, I came to campus. I already knew, probably leaving home, that it was going to be a day that would live in my mind for a long time. Things were tense. You didn't know what was going to happen. So we came onto the campus and expected to hold a meeting. a very peaceful rally because we did not want a continuation of the bloodshed from the day before and the police beating up on us. We were the ones getting hurt. He had decided the night before that if there was any police action we were not going to take a confrontative approach, that we were a nonviolent violent movement that we wanted to make the issues clear. That morning before we even got to campus, the administration had declared a state of emergency on the campus and declared that there could be no assembly on campus. But after this bloodletting the day before, the students On the campus, there was no functioning classes anymore. The students at 8 o'clock in the morning were already in the free speech area just wondering what was going to happen. So we went into the cafeteria and we brought out chairs and we lined them up in the free speech area. So there was probably 200, 300 chairs there where it would have been really impossible to move around and fight the police. We could see to the distance off to our right where there is a large lawn area next to the music room. Berlin. Numerous trucks, police vehicles, cars, trucks, buses, I mean it looked like an army. By the time the police came out there was probably three or four thousand people out there. The entire by 9 30 10 o'clock which is the height of student you know presence on the campus everybody wants to know what's going on some sympathetic some curious. The announcement was made through the by the police they identified themselves that they were here on campus and they were announcing that it was prohibited on that day to have that rally. I remember the announcement. It was that sort of disembodied voice coming through a megaphone saying that we had two minutes to disperse and that if we didn't, we would all be arrested. Well, the announcement was made. We refused to disperse. The police moved in. Then they came into the crowd and they knew who the leadership was. They had a list and they just went, get that guy, guy, you know, and they proceeded to yank all of us. I was speaking on the stage. They yanked me down, took me away. Because they arrested some of the leaders, there was no one up there at the microphone, so some of us would go and replace those who were arrested, knowing that we were probably going to be arrested as well. And we didn't get to say too many words, and we were arrested and escorted to the buses, the police vehicles. Every time they yanked one of the SDS or BSU people out of the audience. somebody from the surrounding crowd came and sat down. So the crowd never shrunk. And rather than being intimidated, it just grew. And pretty soon, people were standing up to the microphone who weren't even political, you know, weren't active, and saying, this is outrageous. You know, this is fascism. They're pulling, by then it's 100, 110, 120 arrests. Student government people were standing up, being arrested. Sundial staff people were being arrested. Freshman students who, you know... know, were outraged and didn't know what even politically what the history was of the campus. They were being arrested. The big buses were there to cart us down to the Van Nuys jail and we were all taken in and booked. We were all, before we were booked, we were all thrown into a huge holding tank and we, and that turned into really a sort of magnificent teach-in as we all talked about what was happening and why it was happening and how such things could happen. happen and so on and then we were individually booked and put into cells and that's the first and only time I've been in jail and I remember walking in front of the window like a caged animal thinking to myself oh my god I am never going to see another woman again so it was it was one of the most peaceful mass arrests in the history of public college movement but at the same time it broke the administration's back because they didn't know what to do now they couldn't respond to this this was solidarity this was students being arrested they thought they could be headed and rather than be heading it and killing the monster it's spraying two new heads and created an instantaneous new generation of leaders and finally an administration acquiesced and gave in on all of our demands the only demand they didn't give on was amnesty but we had decided that at this point it was more important to win these programs that still exist at this campus, one of the few places that still have its EOP programs and studies programs, special studies programs still exist, we decided that was more important and we accepted the settlement even without the amnesty. Those actions, demonstrations that took place. were forced on us because there were no other channels to use to address our grievances.

That's right, we're bapping out the hips for you on this gorgeous Monday morning. It's going to be another hot one, so you people heading out to work or school, be sure to dress cool. cool you off just thinking about those boys at the beach. Of course, the Beach Boys.

This one's for Mary and Eddie, a couple of lovebirds starting the first day back to school at San Fernando Valley State College. Get to class, you crazy kids. I come in late at night, and in the morning I just lay in bed.

Oh, honey, you look so fine. And I know I couldn't take this time. For you to ride, Stories today, South Vietnam, heavy casualties reported and renewed fighting.

On the home front, civil rights leader Martin Luther King led marches in rural Mississippi. For the times, they are a-changin'. Something happening here, but what it is ain't exactly clear.

There's a man with a gun over there Telling me I've got to beware I think it's time we stop Children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down There was a mood on campus in the late 1960s that was of an extraordinary nature. I think that a good many of us felt that it was rather incumbent upon us to rebel.

What it means was to not accept things as they were and to at least investigate them if not to change them. I think most of us came to school most of us who were involved in any way came to school every day expecting something to happen. I can remember always having a spare dime in my pocket and the telephone number of a lawyer written and Della Blink on the palm of my hand because I didn't know if I'd get arrested when I came into school or not.

Students basically were questioning the Vietnam War, the race relations in this society, more broadly the whole nature of this society. Lingering aspects of Victorian sexual mores, politics and political behavior, questioning Democrats, questioning Republicans. This was an era when just trying to Turning on a television set, one could flip from Leavitt to Beaver to men landing on the moon to piles of bodies in Vietnam.

It was a terribly confused and complex time. The thing that made it most complex and most confusing and most dangerous, particularly the young people who might have to fight it, was the Vietnam War. Vietnam changed everything about the 1960s. The war in Vietnam always loomed in the background, and not so much even in the background. background but in the forefront as well.

Many of our students were faced with the direct threat of being drafted and being sent to a fight in a war that was growing increasingly unpopular. Always keep in mind the perspective of what was happening nationally. The Selma, Alabama thing, the beatings of blacks and civil rights activists in Mississippi, the assassinations, the assassinations especially of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy coming within.

A very short time with each other, this galvanized the campus. As that occurred, of course, more and more students began to get active and attempt to get people active on this campus, and more and more did become active, and as they did, it began to affect their lives. everywhere on campus. There were meetings.

There were people talking, haranguing, standing up here and there. One of my early recollections of getting involved while a student here at Valley State College was the movement around the civil rights movement in the South. And many of us were involved in solidarity movements of getting food and sending money down South to the struggle around King and his movement. And a lot of us were affected deeply by that. At the end of my first semester teaching at Northridge, I received among my finals a blue book from a student who was very marginal in the course.

He might pass, he might fail. And on the last page of that final, I found the plea, Please don't flunk me. If you do, they'll send me to Vietnam. In 66 and 67 on this campus, SDS had been formed, and we were doing educational work around the draft and around the lack of student deferments. This is where it all really began.

This is where the whole shot rang out. And we began to build an anti-war sentiment on this campus and an anti-draft sentiment. on this campus.

And our SDS was a multi-issue group, a multi-issue organization. It didn't just deal with the war and things abroad, but we were involved with a campus coalition dealing with equal opportunity programs for minorities and poor students. And one of the things that surprised me, really astonished me when I came here, was the fact that the campus was virtually lily white.

The year before I arrived, there were 23 black students at Northridge. There were seven black students at Northridge. There were seven black students Mexican-Americans.

Valley State had a reputation of being a white citadel. Minority people came to Valley State to deliver services and then leave. It had the reputation of being an extremely racist institution and that Minority students shouldn't even think of matriculating here.

I think the attitude of faculty members on this campus towards minority students, particularly towards blacks and Chicanos in the late 60s, ranged, that is, there was a wide range of reactions. I know on the basis of some of the anonymous notes I got when I became sort of a figure in this, that there was racism. out and out, simple, straightforward racism from faculty members. To be a change agent, which is how I define myself, and my mission coming here was to change. So I had an academic obligation and responsibility, but I also had a social commitment.

That whole question around black brought forth images of great fear, apparently, in white folk. So when it became very necessary to organize a black student union here on the campus, I went to the Associated Students Office. And I told them I would like to organize a group of students on campus.

And I told them I wanted to organize a black student union. And it was like, uh, what? And in fact, when the black student union chartered itself, some of the SDS people had to sign the charter because there wasn't even enough names to meet the school's requirement.

We were involved with the black student union and METCHA around getting funding for equal opportunity programs for the campus. The windows and doors of our campus were closed. opportunity weren't there there was no way to get into the system and we were politically sophisticated enough to know that someone and people in certain positions were holding those doors and windows of opportunity closed to the American dream our position was I am an American. My people have been here, labored, 400 plus years, and you mean to tell me you won't give me equal access to an education?

I think again in the 1960s we started to see ourselves as... as part of groups of people in this country who had felt left out. All throughout 67 and early 68, spring, we had lobbied with the student organizations to try to get money to, in effect, form scholarships.

And the largest block of money found for scholarships to bring minority students on this campus was voted through our lobbying through the student government. And even the administration didn't match the students'money that they put into the program. So by 68, remember November of 68 was the fall semester, the second semester of that year, we had about, oh, probably 130 to 150 black students and anywhere from 50 to 75 Chicano students on the campus.

campus at that time who'd been recruited by students. In the summer of 68, moving into the fall of 68, a number of promises made by the administration were broken. And in fact, it looked as if we were going to be moving backwards in regards to opening up the campus to minorities. My recollections of November 4th are, well, my recollections are a little confused. They're confused because the day was very confusing.

What I remember quite vividly is suddenly the fourth floor of the administration building, the news swept through campus, the fourth floor of the administration building had been occupied by a number of black students and that presumably certain administrators had been taken hostage. And I remember very vividly a very, very huge crowd standing in front of the administration building and a discussion there with the hostage acting president and some of the blacks over what had happened. Now my recollections I know now, I mean I can't remember just when I discovered that I know what had happened in a general way on November 4th, that the black students had been trying to deal with what they perceived as a case of racism among the coaches.

There was a freshman football game and we had some black students that were playing. One of the students, something happened on the field and one of the assistant coaches or something literally kicked this young man in his behind literally kicked him in his behind on the field in front of his teammates and spectators an altercation small altercation ensued but it was cooled out and it was decided that a meeting had to be held with the athletic director once organized the black student union became the the ombudsman, if you will, for the protest, the complaints of various minority students. When a student would make an allegation of some act of prejudice or discrimination, then the Ballot Student Union would then follow this up.

And a meeting was called for that following morning. And at that meeting, This gentleman had a very, very nasty, nasty attitude. He was very condescending. He had an attitude, who the hell are you to think that you can come and demand something? from me do you know who I am and he had to be rudely awakened that he was not dealing with the Negro student who walked around this campus very passively but he was dealing with a new student a black student who were about change they were told there that the the that administrator told them that they that he could not deal with them deal with the issue that it was a matter for the president presumably whereupon the black students surrounded uh this person and said well then apparently that we'll we'll go to the administration building then and see the appropriate administrator.

They apparently felt that that was simply the last straw. They had been buffeted from here to there and told to go here and told to go there and finally they blew. What happened was students left the PE building, went to the administration building along with a couple of the staff members from the PE department to meet with the president of the campus here to carry forth these allegations of racism and prejudice.

When they arrived at the administration building, they were told that the president was not on campus and therefore he would not be able to see them. Because we had been given the runaround like this on any number of occasions, the students just simply said, well if he's not on campus, we will wait until he comes. ...back. And we won't wait along, we will all wait together.

As it turns out, he was on campus, as the students suspected. He was brought to the room, and when he was brought there, a number of demands, if you will, were laid. before him, including the number one investigation of this coach who had committed this act of discrimination, as well as a number of other things, but most notably the expansion of the EOP program, the creation of ethnic studies program, the recruiting of minority teachers on this campus, and an investigation of the hiring practices of the campus. We learned about this while we were at a rally, we meaning the Students for Democratic Society.

We were rallying against the war at that time because the elections were taking place. And we were told that they had done this. Since we had been part of the coalition around these fundings, we thought it was incumbent to support this action. It was a non-violent takeover of the administration building.

and at that point we cut off our rally, we called people from who were in classes in various areas and we went over and we non-violently sat in on the first floor on the steps, not blocking anybody in solidarity. We were all shocked because the first stories that came out was that one of our faculty had been kidnapped by, or several of our faculty had been kidnapped by student activists, that one had actually had a knife held at his throat, that a number of students, of women secretaries were harassed, locked into a room, held against their will, and things of that sort. To this very day, I don't know how much of that is true. There were just too many stories and rumors.

What you had was a campus that had a core of people, maybe 100, 150 by that time, which was growth from the earlier years, plus the black and Chicano students who were beginning to be pretty consciously aware of what race was. racism meant, but you had a large group of students who really didn't understand what was happening, and their first response was hostility. We, in effect, took the responsibility of educating white students, and by taking that responsibility, obviously in that situation, the first step was to explain to them what was happening, and that's how we got involved in November 4th. These negotiations were going on, and we stayed there until we found out they had reached a settlement, a signed agreement. There'd be no retaliation.

that people, they were going to get into the funding of the ELP, they were going to set up a process where that would take place. Initially on November 4th, there were no arrests made because part of the list, the demands that the president signed was an agreement that none of the students would be charged with any kinds of criminal activity resulting out of this. So then we were, the students were allowed to leave the administration building. But immediately upon doing so, the president recanted and said, that the only reason he signed these things was because of duress. And lo and behold, the next day, felony warrants were put out for every black student that was involved, including some that weren't even there because just they hadn't seen that they were black.

The police occupied this campus for a week after this event, and they had a fistful of John Doe warrants for arrest of black students, which had no names on them. And all of the SDS people and the people from the Hillel Council and other people who were there, it wasn't just SDS who were basically white students, they were also going to be arrested. From then on we had a state of siege around here in some respects. They had a great many...

Police and FBI and coming into our classes with guns and with walkie-talkies and we weren't sure what was being recorded and what wasn't being recorded and where it was going. But the black students had... to do on the eve of November 4th and for the next three or four days we had to leave the campus entirely and hide out in various churches in Pacoima and in Los Angeles while we tried to work out a way in which we could could deal with this thing legally.

What ends up happening as a result of this, a number of several of the black LAPDs who worked for the human relations department acted as a go between and met with us in the churches, convinced us that if all of the students would turn themselves in simultaneously, that they would not be beaten, brutalized, harassed, et cetera. For all of the students who had received these John Doe under warrants, then turn themselves in at the Van Nuys Police Department en masse. Because the students involved in the so-called takeover of the administration building had been arrested and were in jail, a number of the students who were arrested were arrested in the same way.

A number of faculty members, including myself, had organized a bail bond committee. I was part of a group that tried to get our students out on bail and assist them with legal advice. I helped raise funds. from faculty and from interested community people to bail students out.

That period of time I can remember in the morning getting up in the morning and feeling as though I was going off to fight evil. It was a clear distinction of what was right and what was wrong. Quite a few white students had come to the point of understanding what our cause was, what it meant, and that we did not want to take over the university, did not want to take over the country.

We wanted in. Time has come today. Young hearts can go their way.

Can't put it off another day. I don't care what others say. They think we don't listen anyway Time has come today Hey! We educated the students on this campus.

We stayed up all night printing leaflets so that 7 o'clock in the morning the next day we had maps of the campus. We knew which entrance to the campus had how many students and how much time, when was the best time to leaflet, and we... we hit this campus and every student on this campus knew what was going on every day.

There was an organization, we call ourselves at that time the November 4th committee, but they basically consisted of a number of students that were opposed to the racism and the discrimination on the campus. And we continued to work together with other groups on the campus that were progressive minded. semester continued, frustration started to build up again because of the lack of progress and the difficulties in making any kind of headway with the administration at that particular time. By January 8th, on that particular day, a great number of students had gathered at the open forum. We had proposed to march from the free speech area up to the administration building and then at the the administration building.

There would be a series of small speeches and then the leadership would go in and attempt to meet with the powers that be. There were about 2,000 to 3,000 people who marched from this open forum area to the administration building to lay our demands again upon the administration. We weren't going there to sit in or anything. We marched to the building.

It became almost a ritual through the year before to come up here, shout at the administration, you know, let us in, support the 10 demands, etc., etc., almost ritualistic. Except on this day, things have changed because there were community people there as well. The outside world was there.

We're in front of the administration building. About three or four of us spoke. We attempt to enter the administration building, and the door is locked. So we make a couple more speeches, and then we say that just the leadership is going to go in.

When we opened that door, when I opened that door, it was wall-to-wall police. We didn't even know that they were on campus. They had parked a bus in the back of the administration building, and the police were waiting. As soon as we stepped in, they grabbed us and began to beat us with the batons.

And then they immediately slammed the door shut, and I was holding the door. Meanwhile, people walking in and seeing the beatings immediately realized they were next. So they tried to come out, and I'm tugging on the door, and the police are tugging on the inside of the door. But I remember it stopped hurting.

You know, they just couldn't hurt me anymore. I was just so angry, and then I blacked out for a little bit. Somebody down the line, whether it was one of our people or whether it was a police agent, we don't know, but they picked an ashtray through a window, and the glass broke.

Well, that was like a trigger. And the police just came charging out of the administration building, clubs swinging. I'm number one in the line. I'm figuring I'm going to get my butt kicked.

And they charged past me, you know, they looked at my blue eyes, and they charged right past me and were beating up black students who were 20, 30 feet behind me. Then they realized, you know... They knew who the leadership was and they realized that there were a few of us close in so they started closing on us.

We hightailed it through the crowd but luckily racism operated to our advantage. They bought us about ten seconds while they were beating the hell out of some of the black students. And then everyone dispersed and this place looked, cops were chasing people, it was unbelievable. One of the students, I'll never forget it, all of us are shackled on this bus, and this one student, his name was Sheldon, apparently one of the police had taken up a time and I saw it in film in court. Later, his head was down on the ground and this police, it was two of them, one of the policemen took his baton straight down and jammed it in his eye.

And this young man's eye, we thought he was losing it. It was, and they wouldn't give him any medical treatment. None of us. And we're bleeding. And I could hear, you could hear these guys enjoying what they were doing.

There was no question about what's your intent, why you're doing what you're doing. It was about, I want to inflict pain on your black ass. And they had their day, and they did it.

And they did this in front of all of these folks who were there non-violently, and some of them came just for curiosity's sake. Well, the next day... we had scores of people wanting to join what we were doing.

We met that night and the faculty meanwhile met that night and was saying what's happening to our campus basically and big, big name faculty by that time not just you know faculty were sympathetic to us. saying basically the campus is breaking down over this issue and it's got to be dealt with. The administration responds zilch.

The faculty members say to the administration wait a minute, you know, if we don't stop this there's going to be bloodshed on the campus meaning the police are going to kill somebody. It had become so bad by that time and the potential for violence everyone felt was so great or that things were coming to some kind of head that that night I believe it was the night of January 8th, a big meeting was held at a church in Pacoima of everyone, all the blacks and those who were in support of them, to sort of chart what could be done and what should be done. We had reserved the free speech area for the following morning, January 9th, for a meeting. January 9th, I came to campus.

I already knew, probably leaving home, that it was going to be a day that would live in my mind for a long time. Things were tense. You didn't know what was going to happen. So we came onto the campus and expected to hold a meeting. a very peaceful rally because we did not want a continuation of the bloodshed from the day before and the police beating up on us.

We were the ones getting hurt. He had decided the night before that if there was any police action we were not going to take a confrontative approach, that we were a nonviolent violent movement that we wanted to make the issues clear. That morning before we even got to campus, the administration had declared a state of emergency on the campus and declared that there could be no assembly on campus. But after this bloodletting the day before, the students On the campus, there was no functioning classes anymore. The students at 8 o'clock in the morning were already in the free speech area just wondering what was going to happen.

So we went into the cafeteria and we brought out chairs and we lined them up in the free speech area. So there was probably 200, 300 chairs there where it would have been really impossible to move around and fight the police. We could see to the distance off to our right where there is a large lawn area next to the music room. Berlin.

Numerous trucks, police vehicles, cars, trucks, buses, I mean it looked like an army. By the time the police came out there was probably three or four thousand people out there. The entire by 9 30 10 o'clock which is the height of student you know presence on the campus everybody wants to know what's going on some sympathetic some curious. The announcement was made through the by the police they identified themselves that they were here on campus and they were announcing that it was prohibited on that day to have that rally.

I remember the announcement. It was that sort of disembodied voice coming through a megaphone saying that we had two minutes to disperse and that if we didn't, we would all be arrested. Well, the announcement was made. We refused to disperse.

The police moved in. Then they came into the crowd and they knew who the leadership was. They had a list and they just went, get that guy, guy, you know, and they proceeded to yank all of us. I was speaking on the stage.

They yanked me down, took me away. Because they arrested some of the leaders, there was no one up there at the microphone, so some of us would go and replace those who were arrested, knowing that we were probably going to be arrested as well. And we didn't get to say too many words, and we were arrested and escorted to the buses, the police vehicles.

Every time they yanked one of the SDS or BSU people out of the audience. somebody from the surrounding crowd came and sat down. So the crowd never shrunk. And rather than being intimidated, it just grew.

And pretty soon, people were standing up to the microphone who weren't even political, you know, weren't active, and saying, this is outrageous. You know, this is fascism. They're pulling, by then it's 100, 110, 120 arrests.

Student government people were standing up, being arrested. Sundial staff people were being arrested. Freshman students who, you know... know, were outraged and didn't know what even politically what the history was of the campus. They were being arrested.

The big buses were there to cart us down to the Van Nuys jail and we were all taken in and booked. We were all, before we were booked, we were all thrown into a huge holding tank and we, and that turned into really a sort of magnificent teach-in as we all talked about what was happening and why it was happening and how such things could happen. happen and so on and then we were individually booked and put into cells and that's the first and only time I've been in jail and I remember walking in front of the window like a caged animal thinking to myself oh my god I am never going to see another woman again so it was it was one of the most peaceful mass arrests in the history of public college movement but at the same time it broke the administration's back because they didn't know what to do now they couldn't respond to this this was solidarity this was students being arrested they thought they could be headed and rather than be heading it and killing the monster it's spraying two new heads and created an instantaneous new generation of leaders and finally an administration acquiesced and gave in on all of our demands the only demand they didn't give on was amnesty but we had decided that at this point it was more important to win these programs that still exist at this campus, one of the few places that still have its EOP programs and studies programs, special studies programs still exist, we decided that was more important and we accepted the settlement even without the amnesty. Those actions, demonstrations that took place.

were forced on us because there were no other channels to use to address our grievances.

Transcript for:Danny Glover on EOP and 1960s Activism

Transcript for:
Danny Glover on EOP and 1960s Activism