00:00:01.340 - 00:00:28.450

Yeah, yeah. No. A Cross Channel four special. Yeah, let's go back to a time before automatic tellers, VCRs, personal computers and answering machines when you could ride a cable car for a quarter back when the Santa Clara Valley was known for its apple orchards. And when

00:00:28.450 - 00:00:48.060

Marin County had more swimming pools than hot tubs, it was only 25 years ago. Hi, I'm Suzanne Shaw. In the next hour you will see our favorite city in all her trials and jubilation, and there were plenty of boat in San Francisco in the 19 seventies.

00:01:02.140 - 00:01:22.980

Remember the seventies? That was the decade that took us from hippies to yuppies from America at war, two Americans held hostage from roughing it to high tech during the seventies. More than any city in America, San Francisco showed the signs, the symbols and the scars of

00:01:22.990 - 00:01:51.670

the times. 23 If I had ever beat him before, I would probably know just what to do, don't you? Today is the first day of the rest of your life. That was the theme of an entire generation trying to change the world or at least change

00:01:51.670 - 00:02:08.070

themselves. Tom Wolf named it. It was the Me decade. I wanted to go to San Francisco in March in a gay and lesbian pride March. That was the big ambition to just get the hell out of Arizona and do this. Hey, Granny, says he. What are

00:02:08.070 - 00:02:28.130

you doing up there? They ain't going to draft you. And I said, No, they ain't. But they might draft my grandson, change myself through meditation, change myself through, uh, change myself through hot tubs, change myself through drugs. I date my career as a professional actor from

00:02:28.130 - 00:02:42.740

the day in 1970 when I went into unemployment and told them that I would not seek other employment. People used to ask me, Are you hippie? I said, No, I'm an Indian. What is? A hippie dropped into the press room and they asked, We're going to

00:02:42.740 - 00:03:03.470

run for mayor again. I said, No, I'm going to finish my term and go on to something else. I think I've run this string out, and an hour later the assassinations took place and it all changed. The world changed and we changed with it. Of course,

00:03:03.480 - 00:03:28.640

much of what we think of as the sixties was still waiting to happen, you had only to look around. In the spring of 1972 C, the year before our presence in Vietnam hit its highest mark over a half million American soldiers. Oh mm, 1970. Some troops

00:03:28.640 - 00:04:00.780

had begun coming home, but that didn't mean the war was ended. In April, after a year of secret bombing raids, ground troops invaded Cambodia and ostensibly neutral neighbor of Vietnam, triggering the most violent protest of the war. At Kent State in Ohio, National Guardsmen fired on

00:04:00.780 - 00:04:21.930

student demonstrators, killing four. Immediately. Student strikes hit campuses all over the country. Fire what you're getting At Stanford, at Berkeley and in downtown San Francisco, thousands marched to end the war. By 1970 it had become a familiar sight, but the crowd was bigger than any we'd

00:04:21.930 - 00:04:36.310

seen yet. What do you think the effective demonstration like this and I have an effect is going to stop the war. Your business executive. What do you think of all this? I think it's marvelous. The protesters now were from every neighborhood and every profession, but it

00:04:36.310 - 00:04:55.870

would be five years before the war in Vietnam was finally over, and in the meantime, the movement had discovered lots of other causes. By the late sixties, a lot of the people that were involved with of the sixties rebellion against the war rebellion against segregation became

00:04:55.870 - 00:05:15.000

involved with a more proactive idea. What do I want to be for? As opposed to what do I want to be against? And if you want to be for something, you were for nature. Mhm. Okay, April 22nd, 1970. The first Earth Day was a celebration of

00:05:15.000 - 00:05:36.580

nature on college campuses and even grammar schools. The ecology movement had its day in the sun. Schools got in the act That was fun. When the local polluter has the entire fifth grade job with some of you guys with TV cameras has astounding influence. The kids

00:05:36.580 - 00:05:54.380

enjoying the teachers enjoy it, and often the pollution stops from Earth Day on, it seemed a new environmental groups started every week. Peter Berg had been living on a commune in northern California. He came back to the city to join the fight for nature. My feeling

00:05:54.380 - 00:06:12.230

about why there are so many ecology groups around the Bay Area is that you can see wildness here. Of that canyon was saved by a popular vote in the early seventies. As I recall, to preserve it is open land. It's Glen Canyon, and that's a piece

00:06:12.230 - 00:06:37.290

of wild native vegetation surrounded by houses and condominiums in San Francisco. It's curious that so many people, I think that the sixties were a failure, rather than realizing that a lot of things from that period have been incorporated into American society from the skyscrapers to the

00:06:37.290 - 00:06:55.960

suburbs. For a while, it seemed the only open space left in the Bay Area belonged to the military, and everyone wanted a piece of it. Ecologist developers and politicians fought over old forts and surplus lands. The most dramatic struggle was over an abandoned prison. For all

00:06:55.960 - 00:07:25.100

of 1970 Alcatraz belonged to the Indians. Come away, come away, you get going, Leave the sink and shipping. I went to Alcatraz Island on the Creedence Clearwater Revival Boat that was given by John Fogerty, who was in tune that the Indians had needs. And one of

00:07:25.100 - 00:07:43.180

them was transportation. So they furnished that When we got over there, it was very cold and who was very damp and it was very hard at night, you know, to sleep on cement and so forth. But at that time it was adventurous, too. We feel that

00:07:43.180 - 00:08:00.330

the so called Alcatraz Island is more than suitable for an Indian reservation, as determined by the white man's own standards. By this, we mean that this place resembles most Indian reservations. It has no fresh running water. There are no oil or mineral rights. There is no

00:08:00.340 - 00:08:22.200

industry. And so unemployment is very great population. There's always been held as prisoners and kept dependent upon others. Eventually, the Indians peacefully left the island. But at the same time, protests in working prisons were not so peaceful. From Soledad to San Quentin, prison reform movement was

00:08:22.200 - 00:08:43.600

growing, led by a young convict who had served 11 years for robbing a gas station. George Jackson. I think racism is a control device. Create an atmosphere whereby they can control inmates. He had been out in solidarity, and the prisons in those days were completely segregated

00:08:43.670 - 00:09:05.030

institutions. They were really California's a part time overcrowding, racism and the inevitable violence. Activist attorneys like Stephen Bingham were trying to help prisoners change the system. George Jackson decided one day just to integrate the T V room. All of the blacks had to sit in the

00:09:05.030 - 00:09:20.600

back of the room and the white sat in the front of the room and, of course, had got in a big fight. And, needless to say, he was given a the 1 15 the disciplinary charge because he hadn't, um sat in the back of the bus

00:09:21.340 - 00:09:40.250

when a white Guard was killed in retaliation for a black prisoners death. George Jackson and two other Soledad brothers were charged with the murder and moved to San Quentin. On August 7th, 1970 Jackson's teenage brother, Jonathan, entered a courtroom in the Marin County Civic Center with

00:09:40.250 - 00:09:57.050

help from three convicts. He took hostages to trade for his brother. After a bloody shoot out in the parking lot, four people lay dead, including Judge Harold Haley and Jonathan Jackson. The guns used were registered to activist Angela Davis, though she wasn't at the scene of

00:09:57.050 - 00:10:17.550

the crime. She was accused of murder and became a fugitive, and the cycle of violence didn't stop. On August 21st, 1971 Stephen Bingham visited George Jackson at San Quentin. Shortly afterwards, shooting started. Prison authorities claimed it was an escape attempt When it was over, three guards

00:10:17.560 - 00:10:38.130

to white convicts and George Jackson were dead and Stephen Bingham was wanted. The lawyer who had counseled Nonviolence found himself forever associated with the bloodiest day in San Quentin's history. It really was my worst fears being realized, and I just realized mainly that I had to

00:10:38.130 - 00:10:56.710

leave, because if I was incarcerated, I would probably get killed. That was really what I felt at that time. I mean, here I would be guarded by guards who believed that I was responsible for all of this death of these guards at Saint Quentin. Bingham's disappearance

00:10:56.710 - 00:11:18.390

immediately after the shooting seemed to support the charge that he had smuggled a gun into the prison. There is no way Jackson could have obtained the death gun, except during his visit with attorney Stephen Big. Um, we were satisfied now that it was brought in underneath

00:11:18.390 - 00:11:34.830

the wig, and since we found the wig this morning, we can now tie in that there was help from the outside because the wig is definitely an outside wig, this damnable rhetoric that goes on by so called revolutionaries on the outside. There's a great deal of

00:11:34.830 - 00:11:53.260

harm this irresponsible kind of blathering about the revolution and kill the pig and this kind of crap. One of the tragedies, I think, for the families of the victims and for everyone is that we really never going to know exactly what took place on the inside

00:11:53.840 - 00:12:14.320

by charging me. They never investigated the incident. Eventually, Bingham stood trial on murder charges, and like Angela Davis before him, he was acquitted. But not before he had spent 13 years as a fugitive in Europe. The irony would be repeated over and over, as the idealists

00:12:14.320 - 00:12:41.760

of the sixties went into exile in the seventies. But back home, the wars continued people at war with the system and a government at war with its people. And in August 1971 the seventies were still looking a lot like the sixties. Yeah, the world will fight,

00:12:41.770 - 00:13:08.670

which is off the wall. Mm, mhm. If the early years were marked by mass demonstrations in the streets, the changes at home were even more radical. The seventies with a decade of women. For me, the decade began because I ran for the Board of Supervisors in

00:13:08.670 - 00:13:25.860

1969 and all the powers that be said, Uh oh. There was already one woman's place on the board. Another woman shouldn't run because you just end up defeating the one woman that was there. And who is a city? 53% female that everybody said just one woman

00:13:25.860 - 00:13:53.310

could serve on the board. And, of course, I won and became the president of the board. Uh huh. Mm mm. Suddenly, all the old role models were changing. What if for the first time, men could be strippers after an act like this one, Executive lunch will

00:13:53.310 - 00:14:08.380

never be the same again. And women could be cops. Any apprehension on your part and spending long nights with a male patrol officer on this duty? No, I have no apprehensions. As long as you know, if I feel I can do the job and he can

00:14:08.380 - 00:14:34.830

do the job and I'm sure we'll get along just fine romance. Not on the job. No, I hope not. She's gone. Yeah, baby, she's got it. Well, on your Penis, I'm your fire at your desire. Male or female. The fashion was freedom, and you could wear

00:14:34.830 - 00:14:51.480

whatever you want it to. Vivian Marcus was a teenager in the early seventies, we would run through sprinklers with our clothes on. We would never wear bras. We didn't shave our armpits, we didn't wear makeup. And basically, we didn't care what people thought There was nothing

00:14:51.480 - 00:15:04.830

wrong with you if you were on your own. You know, it didn't mean you were an old maid. It meant that you were a bachelorette. Sexual freedom was just one of the topics in the now popular women's group. Every place you turn. And every time you

00:15:04.830 - 00:15:23.110

open your mouth, people are assuming that you're some sort of weirdo Amazon, Robert or castrating female that you can't even live your own life. Women's libbers and male chauvinist pigs. In the war of the sexes, it was impossible to stay neutral, and there were lots of

00:15:23.110 - 00:15:47.230

battles. U C Berkeley students shocked the administration by demanding admission to an all male karate class. What you see here is the beginning of a movement that women are human beings and that we have equal rights events. Mhm. There were landmarks great and small. In 1973

00:15:47.230 - 00:16:06.080

the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was legal and here in San Francisco, women were officially allowed to run in the bay to breakers for the first time in its 59 years. Most men resisted the changes. Some supported the rights of women like the Reverend Cecil Williams.

00:16:06.840 - 00:16:26.010

The business manager, then of Glide Church came to me, and there's a person who is trying to get, uh, some women organized and these are women on the street trying to get them organized because she feels as though they are being dehumanized and destroyed and this

00:16:26.010 - 00:16:44.770

kind of thing, and I just kind of let it pass and said, Okay, and then finally, at the end, he said, Well, they're hookers and I said, Okay, and sure enough, the hookers convention was held here at Glide, and the convention was just the beginning. Yeah,

00:16:47.040 - 00:17:05.490

it's all mhm. It was the decade of women, but by the end of the seventies, the Equal Rights Amendment was headed for defeat. Women still made 60 cents to the dollar earned by men, and a lot of idealism was left behind in the trenches. In the

00:17:05.490 - 00:17:54.470

seventies, I felt that I would be successful as an adult if I were not a secretary like my mother. Um, I knew I would never be a secretary. And now I'm legal secretary. Mhm. Mhm, Mhm. Mhm. It was the decision that shaped a generation

00:17:54.610 - 00:18:17.560

to go or not to go to Vietnam. Mm. For some young men, it was no decision at all. Lee Childress was drafted. The reality is nobody wanted to go. The vast majority of men that were drafted, their counterparts were regular army. And I thought erroneously that

00:18:17.560 - 00:18:33.350

these men had joined because of their patriotism. They joined for one and one reason only. So they wouldn't be stuck in infantry in Vietnam. Now that peace is at hand. How would you feel if you had to go to Vietnam now? I wouldn't want to go.

00:18:33.840 - 00:18:47.730

I don't think anybody should go back. Why is that? It's not worth it. My wife's gonna have a baby the 31st of December. And I kinda like to be home to be with her, but doesn't seem to be much. I can do so Just go and

00:18:47.730 - 00:19:12.510

hope it ends Pretty soon. Peace is at hand. That was the announcement in October 1972. A few weeks later, Richard Nixon was reelected in a landslide, but the war continued for another 2.5 years, and so did the suffering. Death was the problem seriously. Maiming and wounding

00:19:12.510 - 00:19:32.460

of your friends was a problem. Staying alive was an enormous problem. So many veterans want to go back to Vietnam. I have no desire. My best friend was killed there. It was not until April 30th, 1975 that the last U. S. Helicopter left Saigon. A few

00:19:32.460 - 00:19:55.670

hours later, the South Vietnamese surrendered to the communist forces. The war that was never declared a war had cost us $150 billion. Over 58,000 Americans lost their lives and we had lost the wall for thousands who arrived at Travis Air Force Base in the seventies. Homecoming

00:19:55.680 - 00:20:19.490

was bittersweet. We didn't want parade, I think in general. Okay. But we did demand What was rightfully ours was respect and we didn't get it. They didn't have to fight for respect from each other. Veterans likely Children found understanding in rap groups. The first event that

00:20:19.500 - 00:20:34.470

blew my mind was getting off the plane in San Francisco and a girl coming up to me and saying You are a killer. It just seemed like life was nothing like that. Nothing. Just, You know, all I thought about was heroin. I could recognize all these

00:20:34.470 - 00:20:56.820

veterans on the street. I could tell right away whether or not a man was a Vietnam vet. And the poem goes that I wrote about that is the 1000 yard stare is always there. His crippled eyes on mirrored skies drift like falling flares alone inside. The

00:20:56.820 - 00:21:16.290

crowd moves by, but he's not really there. He's much older in place yet not on his face will the answer be given to you. You must look down his eyes past your screams and your cries to a home that's been empty for years. Mm. For here

00:21:16.290 - 00:22:04.770

in this place lives the countries disgrace. It's black. There's room for you too. Veterans, resistors, leaders and refugees. No one was untouched. And the casualties of war would be with us for a long time. Bye. The car so free buried in a brown. No.

00:22:05.740 - 00:22:45.610

Uh huh. Mhm. All right. Could you be an American I'm proud of? Yeah. Yeah. In the seventies, patriotism took on new colors. The great challenge to our Constitution began when we heard about the burglary at the Democratic National Committee, the Watergate burglary. At the time, no

00:22:45.610 - 00:23:02.500

one could have believed it would lead to the disillusionment of a nation. But as we watched the Senate Watergate Committee traced the crime and its cover up to the highest offices in the land and having spent 21 years in CIA, following voters without question had never

00:23:02.500 - 00:23:25.970

occurred to me to question the legality of anything that might be ordered by the attorney general of the United States. I love my country. I venerate the office of president, and I have the best wishes for the success of the incumbent president, incumbent of that office,

00:23:25.970 - 00:23:45.650

because he's the only president this country has at this time, Mr. In the end, the system worked. Congress finished the detective job, but it had started in the offices of The Washington Post, with a couple of young reporters later immortalized on film. Get all that, he

00:23:45.650 - 00:24:00.780

said about meeting in a bar, a restaurant. He forgot the entire incident. That means you didn't deny it's a non denial denial. Ben Bagdikian was at the post when the real reporters were making history. You know, the most dramatic thing in the early seventies in terms

00:24:00.780 - 00:24:28.690

of national journalism, Woodward and Bernstein and Watergate, and it projected the image of the individual who could change things. The individual could bring down presidents. I must put the interests of America first. Therefore, I shall resign the presidency, effective at noon tomorrow. Every government would rather

00:24:28.700 - 00:24:46.430

be let alone, and every government has let alone long enough begins to do bad things because people who are watched two different things that people who are not watching it seemed the sixties generation had changed the world after all, and the power of the media had

00:24:46.430 - 00:25:06.760

become an extraordinary instrument of social change. We soon found out that power could be abused. Here in San Francisco, the Social Revolution was eclipsed by a handful of self styled revolutionaries who kidnapped and Paris and brainwashed the public death to the fascist insect that praise upon

00:25:06.760 - 00:25:28.590

the life of the people. They called themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army, but there were only eight soldiers. After two months as their prisoner, Patricia Hearst, announced she had joined the LA This is Tania. I am obviously alive and well as for being brainwashed, the idea is

00:25:28.590 - 00:25:47.750

ridiculous to the point of being beyond belief. Was she a rebel or a victim? Patty Hearst spent a year and a half with the S L. A before her capture in San Francisco and almost two years in prison for bank robbery before President Carter commuted her

00:25:47.750 - 00:26:10.100

sentence. I've learned a lot about people. I've been around. A lot of different kinds of people had to handle lots of unusual situations. And for someone my age, I've been through an awful lot. The Rebels had found their way home by the mid seventies. The sixties

00:26:10.100 - 00:26:50.480

were finally over. Mm. It was time to turn inwards first. This is another form of shopping. Some folks shop for cars. Some folks shop for way of life. Perfect. Yeah. Mhm. Do you see a change in the attitudes towards religion of the American people? I think

00:26:50.480 - 00:27:11.820

I see a universal ization coming about in which they're accepting many elements they never accepted before. I feel that we are quite in keeping with The American spirit will live on which top Lord knows. I like it just fine. From therapy to religion to drugs. For

00:27:11.820 - 00:27:32.800

some, finding yourself meant losing your inhibitions. For others, it meant losing your grip as we try to raise our consciousness in every way imaginable, you're less likely to want to have power and amass power. You're less likely to be a speed freak running around collecting objects

00:27:32.800 - 00:27:50.140

and money. Marijuana slows you down basically, and I think what America needs to slowing down. I think that's what's actually happening in the really ridiculous category. There was the Breathe Arians, who were led by a guy who claimed that you could live. If you really had

00:27:50.140 - 00:28:09.900

your mind coordinated correctly, you could live on just air. I know that what people really want is to make a difference. At its height, the new teaching of self empowerment would attract thousands of followers. It would still be a few years before the destructive side of

00:28:09.900 - 00:28:41.040

religious cults would occupy our consciousness. 1976. In the rolling hills of Marin and Sonoma, the biggest controversy wasn't over religion or politics. It was over a fence Christos running fence, 18 ft high and 24 miles long. It was the biggest work of art the Bay Area

00:28:41.040 - 00:28:56.880

has ever seen. It ran from Dillon Beach to Qatar, but it really got it started. The Brune Ranch in valley poured crystal, Sir, we were the first ones that led them in the house. The rest of them never let them in the house. I don't know

00:28:56.880 - 00:29:14.940

why. Because I could see where strangers and they probably didn't. You know, Cavalieri, about people like that. We let them in and give him a cup of coffee. Very nice. Likeable man. Look like another farmer. How about how about the idea of must strike you a

00:29:14.940 - 00:29:32.110

little strange? Well, we're always, I guess you never too old to see something new. It took over two years of public hearings to win the permits and win over the locals. According to the artist, the controversy was as much a part of the art as the

00:29:32.120 - 00:29:48.330

fence itself. I don't know are tell you the truth, I don't know, admit it was damn nice. And I hope he comes back and does some other crazy thing. If people think it was crazy if it was so crazy, why in the heck did all the

00:29:48.340 - 00:30:13.250

people want to come to see it? They wanted souvenirs, souvenirs and stuff. I theft, you know, But oh, I don't know. People are funny. Then they said, Oh, the sheep won't go through there. You can't put sheep through there. I said, The hell I can't. So

00:30:13.250 - 00:31:22.630

I took the dogs up there and I rounded up a band of sheep and I drove them right through the fence. Who? Yeah, yeah, yeah, heroes. Every decade has them. Even the seventies. Most of ours came from Oakland. Mhm. It was a time when we were

00:31:22.630 - 00:31:48.940

searching for heroes on and off the playing fields and everyone was a candidate. After all, we needed something to cheer us up. After the war and Watergate and the bad news that followed in words like recession, inflation and embargo, we were becoming aware of our limitations

00:31:48.940 - 00:32:04.690

in the world, even the ultimate symbol of American life. The car was often out of gas. You wonder if somebody isn't just trying to get the prices up and make more money, or whether there actually is a shortage of fuel. I can't see the United States

00:32:04.690 - 00:32:20.150

running out of anything, but maybe that's I'm prejudiced. That way I can just get I think the United States should be able to have plenty of anything, just as we were feeling our technological limits. A new industry was born that promised to expand our universe, and

00:32:20.150 - 00:32:41.120

it started right here in the orchards of the South Bay. Mhm. I was born in San Jose, and most of my upbringing was in Sunnyvale. One of the engineering electronics areas of Silicon Valley became known as later, but it was Santa Clara Valley. Back then, we

00:32:41.120 - 00:32:58.360

had electronics kids, the best word I can come up with and we'd go around hooking our houses together with wired intercoms, room to room, and we'd get walkie talkies. You know, that was our life. Some of those kids turn their electronics hobbies into successful businesses. All

00:32:58.360 - 00:33:13.170

you needed was a good idea. And the machine for Steve Wozniak, that was a brand new device to answer your phone. I ran Dial a joke, and I had a recording machine in my house, and sometimes I'd come home and take calls live. And that was

00:33:13.170 - 00:33:29.670

how I met my first wife. She was a caller once. This was the first the first girlfriend I ever had in my life, what he lacked in social sophistication. The 24 year old made up for in Brains and Steve Ross Niac wasn't alone. He met others

00:33:29.670 - 00:33:44.870

like him at meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club, the first computer club in the country. We were talking revolution that the whole world was going to change, and the big companies were not recognizing that everybody was going to own computers. And pretty soon, eight year old

00:33:44.870 - 00:33:56.980

kids. We're gonna find out they could program better than these computer gurus, the only people allowed to touch computers in all the places where we worked. So all of us had one thing in common. We worked with computers, but we didn't own them. Our company owned

00:33:56.980 - 00:34:13.990

them. We wanted our own. And a couple like myself decided to The cheapest way to get a computer was to design our own. So he did. Working in a Silicon Valley garage with his partner, Steven Jobs, Rosny at created the first Apple computer. By the end

00:34:13.990 - 00:34:34.340

of the decade, they had sold 70,000 of them. Computers had come to the people, and the neighborhood would never be the same. Yeah, up around the bay, a similar success story was changing the neighborhood in Berkeley. Like the personal computer, California cuisine had humble beginnings in

00:34:34.340 - 00:34:54.230

an old house on Shattuck Avenue. It was all started by a young woman who taught at a Montessori school during the day and cooked for her friends. At night, we opened with a four course meal that costs 3 95 1971. It's hard to believe when Alice

00:34:54.230 - 00:35:11.840

Waters started shape honeys, she had no idea it would be successful. But the homegrown mix of local produce and French country cooking took off sometimes before the cooks were ready. We had live trout one time in the sink with just and they were jumping out of

00:35:11.840 - 00:35:28.010

the sink and jumping all over the floor, and we were trying to hit them on the head and take them out in the dining room. It was just water everywhere. And these poor trout. Oh, yes, but scenes like that were not uncommon. When I look back

00:35:28.010 - 00:35:44.670

and I see pictures, it's impossible to imagine that were approved by the Health department and not in the way that it had anything to do with the food. It's just that we were. We were cooking like like we're reading at home. That's I mean cooking and

00:35:44.670 - 00:36:03.430

eating at home, and that's really how we ran this place for, uh, 10 years across town, The New Berkeley Repertory Theater was also being run like it was home. And for some starving artists, it was. It was the only thing I knew at the time, But

00:36:03.430 - 00:36:17.240

it was like being part of the family, and and the theater was built, uh, in a storefront. But up above the storefront was this house as you went in the front of the building. There's a stairway that went up to the house proper through the storefront.

00:36:18.130 - 00:36:33.480

I used to sleep in that stairwell. Joe Spano was just out of college when he started working his way toward leading roles over the next 10 years and 30 productions at the Berkeley Rep. The actor and the theater grew up. You know, we started the theater

00:36:33.480 - 00:36:48.800

together, and we learned a lot. Personally, I learned a lot about performing. The storefront kept getting larger and larger. We kept, you know, knocking out walls until there were no more walls to knock out. I suppose the truth is that you can't stay in one place.

00:36:49.230 - 00:37:15.960

Joe Spano moved to Los Angeles to join a new TV series, the Rep moved to a bigger theater downtown. And the cost of the dinner at Chez Panisse climbed to $55 around the bay. The dreams of the seventies had turned into institutions of the eighties. Mhm.

00:37:22.830 - 00:37:52.380

Mm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. I just can't believe it. My whole family would just die if they knew I was here. Why? We just don't have something outgoing this in Des Moines. Mhm. Yeah. In the seventies, thousands of immigrants from the rest of the country transformed the

00:37:52.390 - 00:38:08.680

working class heart of the city. Eureka Valley became the Castro, the gay capital of the world. One of those who came in search of a new home was Harvey Milk. Another was his political protege, Cleve Jones. When I think of the seventies, I think of people

00:38:09.120 - 00:38:35.980

plazas and boulevards and disc goes and meeting halls just filled with thousands and thousands of gay men and lesbian women friends on Yeah. Okay. Mm. No. Good. You weren't just standing in a bar. You weren't just marching in a demonstration. You personally were participating in something

00:38:35.980 - 00:38:54.080

that was historic, something that had been denied us forever, which was to know each other and to be with each other. The new community started some new traditions. Just a block from City Hall. The police and the gays had it out on the softball field. Well,

00:38:54.080 - 00:39:13.500

it was funny away. As policemen. I knew we couldn't lose. And then you look over at the gay softball players and they knew they wanted to win. So you had the extreme athletic competition on the field. But then you looked over at the sidelines and you

00:39:13.500 - 00:39:29.140

saw their cheerleaders and the policemen were the bad guys. We only had our wives and Children cheering for us. It seemed like the whole community was rooting for the underdog, the gay community to beat us, and it could only happen in San Francisco. At that time,

00:39:30.320 - 00:39:47.540

the real contest for the gay community was on the political field, and Harvey Milk was always running. After four campaigns, the camera store owner from the Castro was finally elected to the Board of Supervisors. He was the first openly gay elected official in the country. What

00:39:47.540 - 00:40:02.060

really counts as a person care is a person care about his city or her city is a person's sensitive to the needs of people, and that's the only thing that counts. And that's what San Francisco saying once again on the same day we elected our first

00:40:02.070 - 00:40:26.160

Chinese American supervisor, our first black woman supervisor and a former policeman, fireman and star softball player Dan White, they were all welcome to City Hall by Mayor George Moscone E. He came from a poor family and Italian family. He was a very warm hearted person. He

00:40:26.160 - 00:40:44.270

was sort of a jock. He'd been a basketball player at the University of Pacific, and his dream was to be the mayor of San Francisco. For him, that was the greatest job in the world. We can accomplish what we set out to do. By November 1978

00:40:44.400 - 00:41:00.910

the liberal mayor and the gay supervisor were close allies. The conservative White almost always voted against them. He was growing disillusioned with the job. Decisions were not made on the fair basis that they should have been made on their made because there were pressures, pressures applied.

00:41:00.910 - 00:41:17.060

And this is the system. I found that this is the way the system works. After only 10 months in office, Dan White resigned. The mayor began a search for his replacement, but just as abruptly as he had quit. White changed his mind. He wanted his old

00:41:17.060 - 00:41:36.350

job back. At first, Mosconi was receptive to the idea, but he wasn't sure. And then came the news that made Dan White's dilemma seem unimportant. On November 18th, 1978 we heard the terrible news from Guyana. Congressman Leo Ryan had gone there to investigate reports of abuses

00:41:36.350 - 00:41:53.430

at a religious commune. Jonestown, Ryan and three others were shot and killed by followers of Jim Jones. And that was just the beginning of the horror. Over the next few days, we learned of a mass murder and suicide in the jungle. Over 900 people had died

00:41:53.430 - 00:42:12.440

after drinking Kool Aid laced with cyanide. Most of the victims were from the Bay Area. Well, I got very angry. That was my first reaction. I was very angry. I was angry at him. We must always, always be careful of the person who just points to

00:42:12.440 - 00:42:35.710

himself or herself as the savior, because what they're doing is more than likely exploiting people and destroying the lives of people. Nine days after we heard the news from Jonestown, George Mosconi turned his attention back to city Hall that morning, he planned to appoint a successor

00:42:35.710 - 00:43:00.680

to Dan White. He never got the chance. As president of the Board of Supervisors. It's my duty to make this announcement. Both Mayor Moscone E. And Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed the suspect, his supervisor, Dan Line. I don't know what startled me more,

00:43:00.990 - 00:43:18.080

receiving the information that the mayor had been shot and killed, or finding out that a man that I had known so well respected was the murderer. And I saw a pair of feet sticking out of Dan White's office door, and I recognized him right away because

00:43:18.080 - 00:43:40.950

Harvey had these stupid old wing tips that had holes in the soles of his shoes. He was so poor when he died, he had nothing. Um, and I recognized the feet. The shoes when Dan White went on trial for murder convictions seemed inevitable. But a team

00:43:40.950 - 00:43:59.400

of psychiatrists gave testimony about his state of mind, his bouts of depression and even his appetite for junk food, the so called Twinkie defense work. Even a taped confession to his old friend Frank Falzon, failed to convince the jury that it was murder. Six months after

00:43:59.400 - 00:44:19.980

the killings, Dan White was convicted of manslaughter in less than five years. He would be out of prison. Grief turned to outrage. These weren't the right words, but it was something like no more violence. And that was the chant. And there were some in the crowd

00:44:20.290 - 00:44:43.620

that wanted to change that and began with a chance of kill Dan White. During the white night riots, thousands of gays attacked the symbols of authority. The police were unprepared and the fighting in the streets was as bitter as we've ever seen. By the next day,

00:44:43.630 - 00:45:08.730

Harvey Milk's birthday, the violence had passed and the remembering had begun. George and Harvey, we're not saints. They were not profits. They were politicians. They were ordinary men. What would they have gone on to? Well, they might have just gone on to being politicians. But I

00:45:08.730 - 00:45:36.810

think that no matter what would have happened with them, the city would have been spared horrible experience that tore us apart. Eventually, the cycle of violence would end. The city would recover, even forgive. But we would never forget. Yeah, And the word on the liberals won

00:45:45.840 - 00:46:01.570

if you were in San Francisco in 1978. You remember that day in November when Dan White shot the mayor and Harvey Milk? I know, I remember. I was just a cub reporter racing through city Hall, holding a microphone in front of then Supervisor Feinstein only to

00:46:01.570 - 00:46:19.500

hear those fateful words that Mosconi and Milk are dead. But there is another memory of San Francisco. In the seventies, the city that led the nation what was considered radical in the rest of the country just became part of our daily lives. Some of the changes

00:46:19.500 - 00:46:37.440

were shocking. Some were settled With all these changes. One thing remained constant. Ever since the Gold Rush, we've been the city that knows how how to embrace the new and different, the off beat and the outrageous. And even in the capricious San Francisco of the seventies,

00:46:37.660 - 00:47:35.080

that is the one tradition we held onto. I'm Suzanne Shaw. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, Yeah. No. Mm. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Mm. That. Yeah,