Roots and Fruit
No. 8    Spring 2002

Take a Stand

      Every so often people should take a stand,  to keep in practice if for no other reason. Conscience needs exercising or it can become dormant.      In the early days of the Peace Center the Girl Scouts raised the United Nations flag at the McHenry Public Library. John Birchers immediately took the flag down despite the tearful young people. As no one else would fly that flag, it was flown at the original, dark, storefront Peace Center at 15th and G. It took two or three years for that furor to die down, so the flag was flown these years at the Peace Center for U.N. Day.      Before the UN flag event and before the Modesto Peace Center, officials decided the school lunch program should not be utilized. True such officials are generally well fed so the brunt was carried by those less favored. A sit-in occurred with more than a handful of arrests in Modesto.      Came a time when the local  Klu Klux Klan wanted to march in Modesto. Of course the idea may have been hateful but if there is freedom of speech. The Center came down on the side of allowing the march.  Jim Higgs, though working with people who would oppose the march, came down very vocally to allow the Klan to go ahead. Should there be a counter demonstration, boo, ignore? The march did go on and was a blah. The Peace Center’s image was not burnished for for the stand.      The Peace/Life Center bought the 922 6th St. property in 1980. Several years later the Center, along with the American Friend’s Service Committee S.F., Chico Peace Center and several others, was sued for one million dollars. Something of a shocker it was. Enter John Frailing for the defense. It basically was a harassing effort by the local Consumers Alert, subbing  for utilities. The action withered away in light of facts. The suit was supposed to be about anti nuclear power activities at Diablo Canyon, MID, PG&E. The irony was Stanislaus Safe Energy Committee was responsible for the various anti-nuclear power pickets, leafleting, testimony in Sacramento. However, Safe Energy had no money, the Center had a building at that time.      In the days of the Contras in Nicaragua local Congressman Tony Coehlo was a political power in Washington DC. It seemed he should be exercising his free speech a little more robustly in human terms. He became a focus which turned into a sit in at his office. Dennis Wilson building owner brought in the police to dislodge the sit-in. Jane Jackson, Coelho’s office person got to see so many people she knew get arrested. Three mornings this went on.      Not long into a new century it is time to stand out again. The Martin Luther King Committee is not an official part of the Peace/Life Center though individuals were involved in the work. King Kennedy Center was the organizer. The Center helped financially but not with policy. For 2002 things started as usual. The proposed speaker, Danny Glover, took some strong positions not necessarily aligned with the politics of the day. When this dawned on those in public position the need to be politically correct took over. King Kennedy operates as part of the Parks Department. Parks refused to sign on the contract. Modesto Jr. College withdrew its facility. Modesto Bee backed down. One by one, the domino effect took over. Modesto Peace/Life Center which started as just one of a group of supporters now became the lead agency. Finances became a major issue necessitating a special fund appeal.      What originated as a normal speaking engagement became a free speech issue. Word got out. People from Fresno, Bay Area, San Diego phoned to get connected. An East Coast paper, the Boston Globe, phoned.      If truth and integrity were to be upheld the Modesto Peace/Life Center had to hurry up and adjust to a major problem not of their making. The Center does stand behind what it believes, the Danny Glover visit  was a tremendous opportunity to speak out for civil liberties, free speech and diversity of opinion. January 2002

Time--Part 1

Samuel R. Tyson

 Of all the curiosities about risk taking action the largest is jail. Although the Religious Society of Friends was nurtured in prison, Modern Friends lesser tests are sufficient. Present belief is in legislation which certainly came with Friends but after they knew what they were risking about. When legislation did come for tolerance in 1789, it was not unconditional surrender. Friends continued to show signs of difference. The loyalty oath to the flag was not taken but sidestepped through an affirmation. The hat was still not doffed to your “betters”(class). Out of some decades of turmoil Friends came down on the side of opposition to anyone’s wars as inconsistent with their Christian origins. The carryout from the early years continued with such issues as slavery, women’s suffrage, help Jews escape, support Japanese Americans despite their illegal despoliation and detention.           By the 1950’s Friends opposed war but not much at the risk of detention. As believers in law(sacrosanct) there must be a better way than breaking a LAW. Aside from a long heavy tradition it could seem very difficult to contravene the culture by getting arrested for cause not because you were caught.           My first break came when picked up for jumping a barbed wire fence to collect flowers in Orange County, Los Angeles before Disney. It was a minor issue as I was more in danger from the horned cattle. With two banging collection cans hanging from straps I wandered all over for plant specimens for the plant taxonomy class at U.S.C.: Griffith Park, Santa Susan Pass wherever was the territory. the Sheriff’s deputies were a   non issue as I had a U.S. Forest Service permit as well as some local ones. My goodness prevailed until the Nevada Test Site August 5, 1957 and the beginnings of the Committee for Non-violent Action(CNVA). It provided no jail time with with its peculiar sentencing, suspended for 1 year. What would Nye County do with 11 prisoners and a double bunk jail. In 1962 with the Everyman sentencing Mary Harvey crossed the cattle guard, received a 30 day sentence spent in the Tonapah jail on the second floor, it was an all male institution. Despite the threats in Cheyenne in 1958, no arrests for the group from San Francisco Bay area. There could have been arrests at Vandenberg Christmas 1958 but people were just washed away by fire hoses. Ross Flannagan and I had gone off and left some untrained young people to ferment too long. Are we ever going to visit jail? Yes, Livermore August 1960 when four of us Kepler Stallings Wheeler and I walked into the parking lot of the Radiation Lab, Livermore. After vigiling there several days, observed by many black cars, in we went. It was a weekend and the U.S. Commissioner had to cut short his vacation. Technically we were put on probation but there were not even enough forms for four people. Hearsay had it good words were put in for us(Ben Seaver?). Santa Rita, a former Navy base, was a real jail. While sitting in a tank we heard the news of our arrest, rather weird. Jail over the weekend in East Greystone. I would have been in trouble but the cell mate kept waking me up for head counts and meals. Zonked out after little sleep for several days in Del Valle Park so what if I was in jail.           Background included sociology at USC and  five years or so of a monthly prison visit to Duel Vocational Institute, Tracy,  when Don De Vault as a physicist took a geiger counter into DVI, it became an issue the second time. We were doubling background radiation. Don DeVault(Tracy), Ken Stevens, Rudy Potochnik, Olin Tillotson came as the Delta Friends Meeting Group. Also several years on the Prison Committee of American Friends Service Committee(AFSC) San Francisco during Carl Chessman and other San Quentin death penalty vigils. Broke from the Prison Committee over nuclear fallout. It happened that a fully pregnant young woman was visiting her brother on San Quentin’s death row and was going through an x-ray search machine each time just as we were at DVI. We raised this issue with the prison  committee of AFSC which sent a letter of query off to California State Department of Health. The response, no problem, it was all checked out. OK, to me at the time, objecting to nuclear fallout such a response was not correct. As I told Steve Thiermann, Committee chair, it did not make sense to stay on. The guard at DVI receiving wore a dosimeter. The Catholic priest walked around the machine. I quit the DVI visiting group. CNVA-West arose with the building of Everyman in Sausalito and Modesto(Howard TenBrink, Harry TenBrink, Rudy Potochnik and others).

from Roots and Fruits, a publication of the Stanislaus Peace-Life Center and the Stanislaus Safe Energy Committee

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