As editor, I generally try to keep my personal details out of Geography News postings, but June 10 has a special meaning for me, both as a UCSB alumnus and as one who appreciates the relationship of history and geography. For a teaser, consider the following: “But finally our thanks must go to the people who […] made a commitment to nonviolence and kept it so memorably, who took a beating unflinchingly, looked repression in the face, and pepper gas in the eye — the people who made this ground historic when they put their asses on the line.”
That’s the conclusion of Bob Potter’s speech in Perfect Park on June 10, 2003 at a ceremony dedicating a monument to the worldwide peace movement. Potter (1934-2010) was a UCSB Professor of English and Drama and a renowned poet, playwright, and political activist. He handed me $50 when I got out of jail.
As a Dartmouth graduate in 1967 with a major in French and a minor in English, I had the choice of being drafted into the Vietnam War situation or getting a 2 year deferment by being admitted to graduate school. Since my parents lived in southern California, the UCSB Department of English seemed like a sensible choice. It was. I got my MA in 1969, got called up for the draft the same year, escaped the draft because of a bad knee, and went on to pass my PhD orals in 1971. And then I fell in love with a Welsh girl, got married on the beach near Devereux, and moved to Wales in January of 1972 and stayed there for 14 years. No, I never wrote my dissertation.
But I digress. In 1967, Isla Vista was a slum landlord’s dream, and Perfect Park was a dump. Today, Perfect Park is described as an amenity that “is located at the base of the Embarcadero Loop. Completed in 1995, Perfect Park was designed and built by community volunteers. Beautifully landscaped with improved paths and native coastal plants, it was intended to be an urban getaway for nature lovers and is ideal for bird watching, contemplation, outdoor reading, and picnics. In 2003, the Perfect Park Peace Monument was built to commemorate peace activism in Isla Vista from the 70’s to the present”.
On June 10, 1970, as a Teaching Assistant in the UCSB Department of English, I joined a protest in Perfect Park against the martial law enforced in Isla Vista by the “Special Enforcement Branch” of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department that had been called in on orders by Ronald Reagan: “this notoriously violent paramilitary outfit, which had cracked heads in many urban riots, brought a reign of terror into Isla Vista. On June 8 and 9, enforcing a dusk-to-dawn curfew, the LA Sheriffs, accompanied by local law enforcement units, kicked down doors, dragged Isla Vistans from their houses, beat them bloody with their nightsticks, sexually harassed and intimidated, destroyed vehicles and personal property, sprayed mace and threw tear gas canisters into private yards and dwellings, threatening to shoot to kill” (Bob Potter speech, Ibid.).
The sit-in was organized by members of the community, UCSB faculty, and clergy, or, as Potter put it, by “students radicalized by their professors; professors radicalized by their students; anarchists, pacifists and registered Republicans; flower children, Franciscan friars and pissed-off football players; Marxist-Leninists and proto-feminists; surfers, sorority sisters and sexual revolutionaries; space cadets and Vietnam vets; the Hare Krishna and the Woodstock Nation; visionaries in all colors and mindblown lead guitarists of non-existent bands; not to mention winos, transients, Alcoholics anonymous and otherwise, the Chairman of the Sociology Department, and ordinary college students caught up in the pure adrenaline of the moment” (Potter, Ibid.). When we refused orders to disassemble, the LA Riot Squad fired tear gas canisters into the crowd at point blank range, charged with full riot gear, and beat and arrested 390 people.
Yep, I was gassed, clubbed, kicked, drug by the (then long) hair, handcuffed, beaten, and tossed into a 10’ x 10’ cell with 6 other “felons” for the night. Well, it all seemed like a good idea at the time. “But a crucial moral point had been made. Judge Joseph Lodge ordered charges dismissed against all those arrested and, faced with an ultimatum from University officials, Governor Reagan agreed to end the curfew and withdraw the L.A. Sheriffs. Peace returned to the streets of Isla Vista. The promised bloodbath had been averted*, and the task of creating new institutions for the Isla Vista community had begun” (Potter, Ibid.).
The next time you have a picnic in Perfect Park, remember that geography and history go hand in hand. While you’re at it, check out the history of Isla Vista, don’t call the I.V. police “pigs,” and watch where you sit.
*Editor’s note: this comment refers to a speech Reagan gave to a Growers Convention on April 7, 1970, in which he made the following infamous statement about campus disorders: “If it’s to be a bloodbath, let it be now.” The Kent State Massacre occurred on May 4.
Article by Bill Norrington
