Black Against Empire by Joshua Bloom

Author:Joshua Bloom
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520953543
Publisher: University of California Press

COMMUNITY SUPPORT AND THE LIMITS OF DIRECT REPRESSION

Emboldened by Nixon’s victory, conservative California politicians called for “Law and Order” and forceful repression of dissent at San Francisco State. They found their ideal administrator in S. I. Hayakawa, a linguist and English professor of Japanese descent. Hayakawa was good at framing the issues and was eager to use any authoritarian measures at his disposal to subdue dissent.

Appointed interim president of San Francisco State on November 26, Hayakawa declared a state of emergency and said he would immediately suspend any faculty member who did not conduct class and any student who disrupted campus operations. He portrayed himself as the champion of racial equality while discrediting the students who had made racial equality an issue on campus, and he argued that most students did not support the strike. He distributed blue armbands to the “silent majority” and launched a campaign calling for “Racial Equality, Social Justice, Non-Violence, and the Resumption of Education.” When the Third World Liberation Front continued to picket, Hayakawa promptly suspended student leaders and sent police to break up the picket lines.

Moderate black leaders were upset by this response. They supported the students’ demands for increased minority enrollment, the development of black history curricula, and the creation of a black studies department. In September, black assemblyman Willie Brown had told the college administration, “If the black students on this campus are asking for something, they [s]hould get it. Period! Because our society is blowing up because black people have not gotten anything. And to sit here and go through these ponderous procedures really begs the question and asks for a confrontation.”25

As repression of the students increased, black community leaders joined the student strike. On December 3, later called “Bloody Tuesday,” the TWLF called a rally, assembling twenty-five hundred students and faculty and community members. Among the speakers expressing support for student demands were Dr. Carleton Goodlett, editor of the Sun Reporter, a black San Francisco newspaper; Willie Brown; Berkeley City Council member Ron Dellums; the Reverend Cecil Williams; and Hannibal Williams of the Western Addition Community organization. As the crowd marched toward the administration building, the paramilitary tac squad, armed with special four-foot-long clubs, surrounded the protestors and began beating them: community members, faculty, photographers, medics, campus staff, as well as students. The students fought back for an hour. By the end of the episode, countless protestors had injuries, and the police had arrested thirty-two people.

Hayakawa’s repressive tactics backfired and galvanized black community support. The following morning, Hayakawa met with a group of more than two hundred black community leaders at the office of the Sun Reporter and tried to win their support; he failed in his appeal. Dr. Goodlett said the community would not allow black students to be isolated. Hayakawa retorted, “Those who call themselves representatives of the black community are in my opinion adding to the problem with their presence on the campus. If black leaders come on tomorrow and cause trouble they will be treated like anyone else who causes trouble.

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