Tag Archives: Hal Draper

New to the Stacks: 2020

Love in the Time of Cholera by Marquez, Garcia Gabriel (Pearl Ruled)
The Shore of Women by Sargent, Pamela – read
When Will There Be Good News? by Atkinson, Kate – read (No Review)
The Book of Joan by Yuknavitch, Lidia – read (No Review)
Out of mesopotamia by Salar, Abdoh
In Search Of The Lost Chord: 1967 And The Hippie Idea by Goldberg, Danny read (to do list)
To Hold Up the Sky by Liu, Cixin
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by O’Connor, Flannery- read (No Review)
The Wives of Henry Oades by Moran, Johanna- read (No Review)
Spirits and Thieves by Rhodes, Morgan – read (No Review)
The Rush’s Edge by Smith, Ginger – read
The women’s revolution, Russia 1905-1917 by Cox, Judy – read
George Orwell Illustrated by Smith, David
Marx’s Capital by Smith, David -read
The Fire Next Time by Baldwin, James – read
Sex in the world of myth by Leeming, David Adams Read
The goddess by Leeming, David Adams
The conspiracy trial of the Chicago Seven by Schultz, John
A People’s History of the United States by Zinn, Howard – reading
The Weight of Ink by Kadish, Rachel – read
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Clarke, Susanna
Thinking in Pictures by Grandin, Temple
My Beloved World by Sotomayor, Sonia
The Sirens of Titan by Vonnegut, Kurt
Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology by Reynolds, Richard – read (No Review)
The Relentless Moon by Kowal, Mary Robinette
The Language Of The Night by Le Guin, Ursula K.
Trapped in the Mirror: Adult Children of Narcissists in Their Struggle for Self by Golomb, Elan
Watchmen as literature by Van Ness, Sara J.- read (No Review)
Parable of the Sower by Butler, Octavia E.
Junk City by Boilard, Jon -read (No Review)
The Music Book by Osborn, Karen – read
Back to the wine jug by Taylor, Joe
Watchmen by Moore, Alan – read (No Review)
The Nickel Boys by Whitehead, Colson – read
The Water Dancer by Coates, Ta-Nehisi
Dark mirror by Gellman, Barton – read (No Review)
Playing in the Dark by Morrison, Toni
Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene by Ehrman, Bart D.
Berkeley at War: The 1960s by Rorabaugh, W.J.
Things that can and cannot be said by Roy, Arundhati – read
Cinderella Liberator by Solnit, Rebecca – read
Berkeley: The Student Revolt by Draper, Hal – read
The Books of Earthsea by Le Guin, Ursula K.
Robert Duncan in San Francisco by Rumaker, Michael -read (No Review)
History as mystery by Parenti, Michael – read (No Review)
Feminisms redux by Edited by Warhol-Down, Robyn and Herndl, Diane Price
American Audacity: In Defense of Literary Daring by Giraldi, William
A Book of Book Lists by Johnson, Alex – read (No Review)
Becoming Superman by Straczynski, J. Michael
Howl on Trial by Morgan, Bill and Peters, Nancy Joyce – read (No Review)
Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century by Franklin, H. Bruce
Legends edited by Silverberg, Robert – read (No Review)
Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Calvino, Italo
Why I Read by Lesser, Wendy
Side Life by Toutonghi, Steve – read (No Review)
This is how You Lose the Time War by El-Mohtar, Amal and Gladstone, Max
The Future of Another Timeline by Newitz, Annalee – read
Gideon the Ninth by Muir, Tamsyn – read
Sixteenth Watch by Cole, Myke – read (No Review)
The City In The Middle Of The Night by Anders, Charlie Jane – read
The Lost War by Anderson, Justin – read (No Review)
Small days and nights by Tishani, Doshi – read
The Shadow King by Mengiste, Maaza – read
Mickey Mouse: From Walt to the World by Deja, Andreas

Review: Berkeley: The Student Revolt

Berkeley: The Student Revolt by Hal Draper

Title: Berkeley:  The Student Revolt
Author: Hal Draper
Published: 2020 (Haymarket Books edition)
ISBN-13:  978-1-642591255
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Publisher Blurb: “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part! You can’t even passively take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels … upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop!”

Brimming with lessons still relevant for today’s activists, Berkeley: The Student Revolt is a classic of on-the-ground historical reportage.

Ron Anastasi and Mike Rossman carrying “Free Speech” banner from Sproul Hall to demonstration outside Regents’ meeting November 20, 1964.

There’s something about this period of history which fascinates me deeply.  I can’t go to Berkeley or San Francisco without being aware of the history I walk through.  Reading Hal Draper’s Berkeley:  The Student Revolt written in 1965, is on the ground “I was there” reporting.

Draper brings together all the minute by minute details to explain how the Free Speech Movement exploded on campus one day in September, 1964.  Although, as most historians will tell you and Draper certainly does, things don’t happen overnight because there are mitigating factors.  The history leading to the Free Speech Movement is rich and dense, filled with many factors.

Draper writes of the peaceful student protests demanding to be able to express their opinions, political or otherwise, on campus.  To be able to raise money and recruit volunteers for off campus events.  Many had spent the previous summer in the Deep South working for civil rights.

To have their own rights stunted in the face of an unpopular war (Vietnam) and the treatment of African-Americans caused deep anger and resentment.  In the face of a dictatorial Chancellor who had been hired based on his research about labor movements which should have made him sympathetic but didn’t, student unrest grew.

Draper was there, amongst the students as a library employee, his knowledge of the inner workings makes this an excellent resource in the body of work still evolving about dissent, protests in the face of bureaucrats who use might makes right to get their rules obeyed.

Over the fifty years since, this very scenario has played out more times than I like to remember.  In 2019 during a deadly global pandemic, government leaders are using the same playbook to shut down the rights of us all to be healthy and safe.

Confusing, contradictory, obfuscatory dictums fly through the media.  Responses to any common sense calls for reasonable actions on the part of leaders are met with ridicule and often threatened violence.

What amazed me as I read was how very young these students were, how mature and deeply committed they were to their cause.  They understood it was about something larger than themselves.  Mario Savio’s thoughtful speeches give an insight I hadn’t much thought about because I have reaped the benefit of their protests.

At the same time, I was saddened to understand that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Change is always met with resistance, those in power backed by those with greater power and money will always clamp down.  Their actions invariably lead to some sort of police action.

Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement opened the door for peaceful protests and thoughtful discussions about the First Amendment and its role on college campuses.  A discussion which continues now, and is especially important as an ill-informed citizenry continues to misunderstand the power of the First Amendment and try to use it in support of their *-ist rhetoric.

But I have hope because things have changed, the citizenry is allowed to express themselves.  Students are allowed free and open discussion of unsavory topics.  And the discussion about what First Amendment rights mean continues unabated.  Without the student protests and strike at Berkeley, none of this would be possible.