The Long, Bloody Strike For Ethnic Studies

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Gene Demby (0:17)

50 years ago, a bitter strike upended one of America's biggest cities.

It wasn't a standoff between workers and bosses, though. It was a standoff between college students and college administrators.

Shereen Marisol Meraji (0:34)

It was a multiracial fight. Hundreds of students at a mostly white commuter college in San Francisco, California, refused to go to class until more people of color were admitted. Strikers were also calling for a radical innovation at the time. A college of ethnic studies where all students could learn about brown and black communities in the United States.

And I think it's fair to say things got ugly.

SPEAKER_4 (1:01)

They just started beating him, and they didn't even bother with him to arrest him. He wasn't, because he wasn't doing anything. They just left him to lie in the corner here.

Lisa Ray Gutierrez (1:09)

You can see his blood.

Jerry Vernardo (1:10)

The police were angry that the white students would even support us. Every battle was under attack.

Loreen Chu (1:16)

I just saw brutality I never want to see again.

Lisa Ray Gutierrez (1:20)

I spent my 19th birthday in jail.

Jason Ferreira (1:23)

All for what?

Black studies? Ethnic studies?

Gene Demby (1:26)

I'm Gene Demby.

Shereen Marisol Meraji (1:27)

I'm Shereen Marisol Meraji, and this is Code Switch.

Gene Demby (1:31)

From NPR.

Shereen Marisol Meraji (1:33)

Big news on our beat, Gene. If you attend the largest public university system in the country, the Cal State system, here in California, and that's a lot of people, you cannot graduate unless you take an ethnic studies or a social justice course.

Gene Demby (1:49)

I did not know that.

So the head of the CSU system, his name is Timothy P. White, he said in a statement that taking an ethnic studies or social justice course will, quote, empower our students to meet this moment in our nation's history, giving them the knowledge, broad perspectives, and skills needed to solve society's most pressing problems, end quote.

Shereen Marisol Meraji (2:08)

That is a lovely quote, but not everyone is into this idea, as some of you listening probably already have surmised. Look, critics don't want more rules and requirements for graduation, and there are actually some ethnic studies advocates who think the kind of courses you can take to fulfill this requirement, that they're just way too broad.

Gene Demby (2:28)

Interesting. But there are still people who are saying, it's about time they think it's a step towards making Cal State students better citizens of the world. And we just have to say, like we said before in this show, none of this, none of this could have happened without a months-long, very bloody struggle at San Francisco State University, which just happens to be Shereen's alma mater.

Shereen Marisol Meraji (2:50)

That's right. Go Gators.

And on this episode, I'm going to tell you how student organizers and activists in the Bay changed higher education across the entire country more than 50 years ago by staging the longest student-led strike in US history.

SPEAKER_9 (3:09)

Okay, goody, goody, goody, goody.

Gene Demby (3:16)

I have a lot of questions for you, Shereen, about the student strike. Like, for starters, why does this stuff always happen in the Bay? Like, what is it about the Bay?

And why, in particular, did this student strike pop off?

Shereen Marisol Meraji (3:30)

I haven't said this on the podcast recently, but, Gene, it's complicated.

Gene Demby (3:35)

It always is.

Shereen Marisol Meraji (3:37)

The short answer is it popped off because of the suspension of a grad student named George Murray in the fall of 1968 Murray was teaching intro English classes to incoming freshmen at San Francisco State, and many of his students were black on a campus that was decidedly very white.

People point to a whole bunch of reasons for why George Murray was suspended, but his stance on the Vietnam War was a big one.

George Murray (4:03)

Our statement was that the war in Vietnam is racist. It is a war that crackers like Johnson are using black soldiers and poor white soldiers and Mexican soldiers as dupes and fools to fight against people of color in Vietnam who have never called black people nigger.

Gene Demby (4:20)

Crackers like Johnson. I mean, so he's referring to LBJ, right?

Shereen Marisol Meraji (4:24)

That's right. And that audio we're listening to is from a televised press conference. George Murray is rocking an Afro. He's got very dark sunglasses on. And what I haven't told you yet, Gene, is that he was a member of the Black Panther Party, which was founded about two years prior to the San Francisco state strike across the Bay in Oakland, California. And George Murray is the Black Panther's Minister of Education.