SF State Strike Commemoration

On Tuesday 3rd March, the poet, veteran activist and former student radical Joy Magezis joined strikers on the Royal College of Art picket in Battersea. Holding her book in hands red with cold, she read a poem written about her own experience at San Francisco State College in 1968 when students struck for five months over demands to see an Ethnic Studies department established. This stands as an early effort to decolonise education in America, in the context of the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam War, in which they eventually succeeded. She read the poem in the spirit of building hope and solidarity across the generations and across history, which we would like to share with others in turn.

 

Back in 1967

this radical girl

came to San Francisco State

from Community Organising

 

Link with SDS project

for housing, rent strike

and Baltimore students

also on campus

 

So joining SDS

at SF State

seemed so natural

with other projects

 

Spring’68 blossoms

worldwide struggles

from France to SF sit in

for ethnic admissions

 

September revives

zest for justice

Me now living

with my SDS guy

 

In telescoped time

we now return

somehow grandparents

Still partners in love

 

Back then Black Student’s Union

calls strike, sets demands

for department to study

hidden history, culture

 

Desire to define

their own destiny

In height of Black Power

BSU is leader

 

From the start

SDS backs strike

helps organise Committee

for White Strike Support

 

Now this may sound strange

but in emerging energy

for self determination

that was natural flow

 

Civil rights movement

exposed poverty, racism

clearly for all to see

desperate need for change

 

Police helped build strike

by beating BSU leaders

White students shocked

witnessing on campus

police treatment in ghettoes

 

More students joined strike

White Support Committee

As we picketed entrances

campus was polarised

 

Force field to do right

needed to make it happen

in our vision others students

part of solution or problem 

 

SDS saw source of problem

propping up racism

as Capitalist ‘me first’

militarist system

 

At San Francisco State

more working class students

trained to keep system running

not to see bigger picture

 

In that larger view

white students being used

To help them see how

we formed department caucuses

 

In Department of Psychology

students critiqued skewed view

that mental illness is within

divorced from socioeconomic

 

When I gave MMPI test

to my SDS women friends

we came out actively antisocial

labelled ‘juvenile delinquents’

 

We saw role of psychology

fitting ‘deviants’ back into system

So drink beer, watch TV burnings

of Vietnamese kids as Viet Cong

 

In Nazi Germany

was sanity beating Jews

and madness protesting

or other way round

 

For me as a Jew

connection was clear

with KKK Black hangings

and Nazi exterminations

 

White Student demands

for change in their courses

brought understanding

support for Ethnic Studies

 

As weather turned cold

and professors struck

‘On Strike, Shut it down’

became a reality

 

Arrests at free speech platform

brought 450 down to jail

We women were processed

then put in large holding cell

 

Anyone seen as threat

like woman asking for milk

for girl with stomach ulcer

were put into solitary

 

From large holding cell

we began to hear screams

of scared young woman

picked off and confined

 

Alone in tiny cell

more frightening

than she could bear

she shouted to be free

 

When guards wouldn’t listen

we acted together

banging and chanting

‘Let her out’, ‘Let her out!’

 

Our call vibrated

throughout jail house

down to Bryant Street

supporter crowd below

 

In ‘69 Women’s Lib sprouts

with some men still laughing

saying women’s place prone

while others saw struggle link

 

Back in ’67 at SDS Conference

woman asking us to meet

brought uproarious laughter

still some of women gathered

 

Problem with no name

begins to have words

Why are we left in background

Mostly not taken seriously

 

When women like me spoke at rallies

some guys just saw body parts

their long legs or large breasts

excuse for eclipsing their words

 

But in this time of rising

from Civil Rights to Ethnic Studies

struggling against oppression

helped us see ours as women

 

Earlier at Anti-Slavery Convention

barred for being female delegates

Mott and Stanton were inspired

to organise for women’s rights 

 

Strike women met when it ended

empowered by what we’d been through

Challenging old assumptions

exploring strengths, building movement 

 

So the rebirth of feminism

was there in that holding cell

when, beyond fear, we chanted

‘Let her out. Let her out!’

 

Guards dragged over fire hose

put nozzle through bars

Sudden force of water

knocking us off our feet

 

Drenched, we regained balance

and guards did let woman out

Our solid action together

engine vibrating deeply

 

* * *       

 

Forty year on lessons

power of energies united

Force beyond each one

belief in justice vision 

 

Mass march together

Agit Prop Theatre

Running from police chase

hiding, swapping jackets

 

Scared facing jail unknown

but not wanting to disappoint self

be Germans just looking on at

packed cattle cars of human cargo

 

In that youth of belief

that we can change world

though seemingly impossible

shifts ripple through country

 

Now celebrate achievements

of College of Ethnic Studies

Women’s Movement growth

Peaceful prosperous Vietnam

 

Much writings of Strike, SDS

even England, Shoe Store School

Gordon DeMarco now passed on

Bob Biderman and I

 

I want to share lessons

of traps we fell into

perhaps could be useful

for generations now

 

Seeing in absolutes

that blinder limiting vision

to either all right or wrong

allows no way to come together

 

Sectarian in fighting

finally destroyed SDS

Though reborn in this time

of new student challenges

 

It was our condemning vision

part of problem or solution

No middle ground possible

Needing to prove we’re right

 

I used to work out of anger

feeling the force of its power

rush against social injustice

keeping me active in struggle

 

I just couldn’t trust myself

to work from kinder emotion

For my external anger

also turned in on myself

 

Internalised as Guilt

needing to prove I wasn’t bad

seeing badness all round

limiting love getting through

 

Over decades life taught me

that anger is not most effective

Healing my own inner pain

compassion naturally flowed out

 

Better way to hand leaflets

against Iraq War

Not pushing them at ‘others’

but handing each person peace

 

More people take leaflets

feel safer beyond judgement

to touch inner peace yearning

have common ground to speak

 

Listening, more important

than my talking to convince

in deeply hearing others  

we find same core within

 

Then we see not separate

but interconnected

Poverty, racism hurts us all

in fairness we each benefit

 

Joy Magezis

October 2008

delivered at

40^th SF State Strike Commemoration

 

This poem is included in Joy's anthology, Blossoming: Dharma Diary Poems, Black Apollo Press, 2012.