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Histories of people's struggles in the San Francisco Bay Area. ig: leftinthebay | email: leftinthebay@gmail.com
Apr 19 4 tweets 2 min read
56 years ago, April 18 1968, marked the end of a 3-day insurrection at the El Pueblo housing project in Pittsburg. After police arrested several Black men for shooting dice, a crowd attacked them with rocks and bottles. When reinforcements arrived, they were met with sniper fire Image For those three days, police from Pittsburg, Concord, Antioch, and Martinez battled with snipers who fired from at least five directions. Six cops were wounded; only one rioter was. No one on either side was killed Image
Mar 18 5 tweets 2 min read
105 years ago, March 18 1919, a bomb exploded at the Oakland home of banker George Greenwood, killing his wife. Within days, Russian-born IWW member Pavel Melnikov was arrested for the murder on scant evidence. He was deported without trial in December 1919 as a "dangerous alien" Image Melnikov, who had participated in revolutionary groups in Russia, New Jersey, and Seattle, was arrested at the IWW's Jack London Memorial Library in Oakland, and accused of plotting the murders of local capitalists as a member of an alleged IWW secret society, the Cat's Claw Club
Mar 14 7 tweets 4 min read
54 years ago, March 13 1970, members of the Berkeley Tenants Union, along with members of People’s Architecture and the Berkeley Food Conspiracy, published “And But For the Sky There Are No Fences Facing” in underground newspaper the Berkeley Tribe Image The essay, also known as “Blueprint for a Communal Society," was published in the early weeks of BTU’s massive 1970 Berkeley-wide rent strike. A manifesto of sorts, it analyzes housing in Berkeley from a radical social and ecological perspective Image
Mar 10 5 tweets 2 min read
56 years ago, March 9 1968, the Peace and Freedom Movement inaugurated the “Freedom Festival Week” with a parade of ten thousand people marching from the Peace and Freedom Party HQ at 55 Colton St, weaving through the Haight, out to the Polo Grounds of Golden Gate Park Image The march was led by the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s rag-tag Gorilla Band, a 27 member radical musical crew that included flag-bearing majorettes, a chorus, a brass section and a man who hummed through a comb. A goal of the march was to bring collective arts into the streets Image
Mar 8 6 tweets 2 min read
Happy International Women’s Day! While there is some dispute about when “the first” IWD took place, the holiday was adopted and promoted by socialist movements around the world following the March 8, 1917 Women’s March for Bread & Peace in Russia Image The earliest IWD celebrations in the Bay Area were organized by the Communist Party. The first that we know of was in 1935 at the Finnish Comrade’s Hall in Berkeley. Early IWD celebrations featured dancing, spaghetti dinners, and speakers such as SF suffragist Anita Whitney Image
Mar 6 7 tweets 3 min read
53 years ago, March 5 1971, the Black Panther Party held the Revolutionary Intercommunal Day of Solidarity in Oakland. Officially a fundraiser for four Black political prisoners, the event was an attempt by Huey P. Newton to consolidate support amidst a major split in the party Image The split in the BPP between Huey Newton's Oakland leadership and Eldridge Cleaver's faction, which enjoyed support in New York and in Cleaver's Algeria-based "International Section," had split into the open shortly after Newton was freed from prison in August 1970
Feb 21 10 tweets 4 min read
56 years ago, Feb 21 1967, Betty Shabazz arrived in San Francisco for her first public speech since the murder of her husband Malcolm X. She was escorted by an armed phalanx of 14 men from two different new organizations, both called the Black Panther Party Image Shabazz had been invited to San Francisco for a three-day memorial to Malcolm X in Hunters Point that was organized by the Black Panther Party of Northern California, an armed group affiliated with the local chapter of the Revolutionary Action Movement
Feb 20 5 tweets 2 min read
106 years ago, Feb 20 1918, 16-year-old San Francisco socialist Hazel Stewart refused to pledge allegiance to the American flag in opposition to US involvement in World War I. Her suspension led to a wave of student anti-war protest, triggering a crisis for the SF school board Image Stewart was a member of the SF chapter of the Young People's Socialist League, the Socialist Party's youth wing, led by Lowell High School senior Malvina Milder (who would later become famous as the folksinger Malvina Reynolds), the daughter of leading local radical David Milder
Jul 20, 2023 12 tweets 5 min read
54 years ago, July 20 1969, the Black Panther Party's three-day United Front Against Fascism Conference concluded in Oakland. The UFAF was an attempt to unite the disparate strands of the American left in order to combat what the Panthers saw as creeping American fascism Image The Panthers announced the UFAF in May after the killing of James Rector and the occupation of Berkeley by the National Guard. These incidents, combined with increasingly violent state repression of the BPP, were seen as signaling a turn towards fascism
Jul 13, 2023 7 tweets 3 min read
49 years ago, July 12 1974, San Francisco police illegally raided a Haight-Ashbury headquarters of the White Panther Party, a left-wing revolutionary counterculture group, leading to a shootout that ended with the building destroyed by fire

The White Panther party was founded in 1968 by white midwestern radicals allied with the Black Panthers. Like the Yippies, they attempted to combine revolutionary socialist politics with a countercultural ethos, promoting communal living, rock & roll, and psychedelic drugs
May 21, 2023 6 tweets 4 min read
44 years ago, May 21 1979, over a dozen cop cars burned as thousands marched and rioted in San Francisco after word broke that Dan White received the most lenient verdict for murdering George Moscone and Harvey Milk. The evening would become known as the White Night riots Image Once the verdict was announced several hundred gathered in the Castro to chants of "No justice, no peace" and "Out of the bars, into the streets." After a moving speech from Cleve Jones, friend and student intern of Milk, a march and candlelight vigil was led to city hall ImageImageImageImage
May 19, 2023 5 tweets 3 min read
34 years ago, May 19 1989, thousands gathered in Berkeley to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the People's Park movement, leading to a riot in which anarchists and homeless clashed with police, and a number of Telegraph Ave businesses were smashed up, burned, and looted Image Many participants had come to the Bay Area for an anarchist convention in San Francisco. They crossed the bay for a celebration of People's Park and a demonstration to "defend" Telegraph Ave, once a center of local radical activity, from rapid gentrification Image
Apr 29, 2023 6 tweets 2 min read
147 years ago, April 29 1876, a white mob in Antioch forcibly evicted all Chinese residents from the town after rumors proliferated that Chinese sex workers had spread venereal diseases to a handful of men. The next day, after Sunday services, Antioch's Chinatown was burned down Image As early as the late 1840s, hundreds of Chinese migrants had taken up residence in a couple square blocks of downtown Antioch abutting the delta, creating one of many California Chinatowns. In little time, Anti-Chinese sentiment had been practically baked into the town charter
Apr 26, 2023 7 tweets 3 min read
46 years ago, April 26 1977, a gunfight at the People's Food System's San Francisco Cooperating Warehouse left one dead & one (San Quentin 6 member Willie Tate) critically wounded. The shootout is regarded as having spelled the end for the People's Food System's co-op network Image The People's Food System, an attempt by radicals to replace commercial food distribution with cheaper, healthier, democratically-managed alternatives, grew out of the "Food Conspiracies" of the late '60s. By the late '70s they managed a large, successful network of food co-ops Image
Jan 23, 2022 5 tweets 3 min read
53 years ago, Jan 22 1969, students at UC Berkeley began a three-month strike. Led by the Third World Liberation Front, a coalition of Black, Mexican-American, Asian-American, and Native American student groups, the strike led to the creation of the Ethnic Studies Department Berkeley students were inspired by the then-ongoing Third World Liberation Front strike at San Francisco State University. Berkeley TWLF's key demand was for a "Third World College," to include student-led departments of Black, Asian, and Chicano studies
Dec 3, 2021 8 tweets 4 min read
75 years ago, Dec 2 1946, 10,000 workers amassed in downtown Oakland in solidarity with striking retail store clerks. The rank-and-file action marked the true beginning of the Oakland General Strike, one day before it was officially called by the AFL Central Labor Council The General Strike grew out of a struggle for union recognition by downtown retail clerks, almost all of whom were women. Early on, some local retail stores caved to union demands, but the largest, Kahn's and Hasting's, refused. In late October, workers at both stores walked out
Oct 15, 2021 15 tweets 6 min read
55 years ago, Oct 15 1966, Huey P. Newton & Bobby Seale, radical students at Oakland's Merritt College formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Inspired by SNCC's Lowndes County Freedom Organization, the BPP would have an enormous impact on global revolutionary politics Image While they quickly made a major impact on the American political scene, the BPP didn't come out of nowhere. The mid-'60s Oakland they emerged from was swirling with Black radical organizations, thinkers, and militants which they worked with, learned from, imitated, and critiqued Image
Jun 29, 2021 6 tweets 3 min read
53 years ago, Jun 28 1968, activists marched through Berkeley in solidarity with the recent "May '68" revolt of French students and workers. Police attacked the march, leading to six days of demonstrations and riots in the South Campus area The march was organized by the Young Socialist Alliance, the youth wing of the Socialist Workers Party, and supported by the Peace & Freedom Party, the Tricontinental Student Association, the Independent Socialist Club, and others. Huey Newton sent a letter of support from prison
May 21, 2021 6 tweets 4 min read
42 years ago, May 21 1979, over a dozen cop cars burned as thousands marched and rioted in San Francisco after word broke that Dan White received the most lenient verdict for murdering George Moscone and Harvey Milk. The evening would become known as the White Night riots Once the verdict was announced several hundred gathered in the Castro to chants of "No justice, no peace" and "Out of the bars, into the streets." After a moving speech from Cleve Jones, friend and student intern of Milk, a march and candlelight vigil was led to city hall
May 21, 2021 8 tweets 3 min read
56 years ago, May 21 1965, the first Vietnam Day, a 35-hour teach-in on the Vietnam War, began in Berkeley. The event was organized by the Vietnam Day Committee, a direct outgrowth of the Free Speech Movement led by activist Jerry Rubin Some 35,000 people attended the teach-in. Anti-war speakers included Staughton Lynd, Bob Scheer, Dr. Benjamin Spock, and FSM leader Mario Savio. Despite the event's anti-war stance, it featured some speakers who supported the war, such as Cal professor Aaron Wildavsky
May 21, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
52 years ago, May 20 1969, thousands of protesters marched through UC Berkeley to honor James Rector, a bystander who had been killed by police the previous week in a conflict over People's Park, when they were teargassed by a National Guard helicopter deployed by Governor Reagan Following the killing of Rector, who had only been visiting friends when police opened fire, National Guard flooded into town, where they acted as an occupying force. A demonstration was organized to mourn Rector's death, and the Guard swiftly corralled it into Sproul Plaza