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Gildersleeve Berkeley social protest collection, 1966-1976
MANUSCRIPT 2448-2458
Collection Overview

Title:

Gildersleeve Berkeley social protest collection, 1966-1976
Berkeley social protest collection, 1966-1976

Creator/Contributor:

Gildersleeve, Grace, 1911-

Creator/Contributor:

Gildersleeve, John S., 1911-1987

Abstract:

John S. Gildersleeve was associated with the California State Library from 1936-1947 and served as head of the Acquisitions Section during the later years. When he left in 1947 to accept an editorial position with the University of California Press, John and his wife, Grace, were pleased to return to the Bay Area and soon settled in to enjoy the rich diversity of life in Berkeley. Twenty years later, however, they found that living in Berkeley meant participating in a community caught up in the changing social environment of "The Sixties". Issues on the national agenda addressing civil rights, the Vietnam War, and the empowerment movements for minority and social groups found unique expression in the Berkeley community, which had a long tradition of supporting radical social causes. It was a time for activism and a multiplicity of organizations were established to address these issues in the local milieu.
Grace Gildersleeve explained how she became involved: "In the late 50s I had a part-time job with the Unitarian Church. The building was near the campus so the action associated with the Free Speech movement was apparent, but the issue did not concern me or mine directly. However, the threat and reality of war did concern me. I joined the Women for Peace and the Unitarian Peace Committee. I went to all the peace rallies, the marches, vigils and fundraisers where I thought my presence made a difference." She also participated in local politics, supporting the emerging radical/liberal party that evolved during the early 1970s. Grace served as treasurer for the Berkeley Coalition (later the April Coalition) and was on the editorial board of "Grassroots, A Berkeley Community Newspaper" that supported the Coalition's agenda.
It was John who instigated the Gildersleeve collection. Realizing the value of creating a historical record of the extraordinary events of the time, he began to collect and organize the material that came into their home through mailings and that Grace collected during her activities. Beginning with a scattering of items from 1966 through 1969, collecting activity peaked with the 1971 Berkeley city council election and tapered off for several years thereafter. In 1976, John packed up the collection and shipped it to his friend at the California State Library, Allan Ottley, then head of the California History Section.
Material in the collection is primarily "ephemera" -- printed material usually produced for a specific limited use, distributed casually, and often thrown away. Included are fliers and leaflets, mass mailings, newsletters, posters I all produced by social protest organizations to promote their views and activities and to elicit support. In addition there is some internal documentation for the political groups Grace was involved with, such as minutes from committee meetings and financial reports. Often there is only a single item from an organization and in no case can the material be considered of depth. But taken as a whole, the Gildersleeve material presents an evocative overview of the Berkeley community during that defining era and documents one family's response to the challenge of the times.
The collection has been organized into the series described below. In each series, materials for the various organizations have been separated and sorted by type and/or date. Within each series, organizations with significant representation in the collection are identified.
ANTI-VIETNAM WAR: This series focuses on the anti-Vietnam war movement as it developed in the Bay Area. Documents are from organizations that were formed specifically to protest the war rather than to promote peace in general (see also Peace series). Groups with folder-level documentation include: the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO), The Downtown Peace Coalition, the National Peace Action Coalition (NPAC), the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (New Mobe), the Northern California Peace Action Coalition (NPAC), and the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in S.E. Asia (Student Mobe).
A: Air War Action Committee; The Ally (newsletter); American Committee for Solidarity with the Vietnamese People; American Reparations Committee; Another Mother for Peace; The April 22nd Coalition -- B: Bay Area Concerned Military; Bay Area Draft Repeal Coalition; Bay Area Peace Action Council; Bay Area United Campaign to End the War; Bay Coalition for Universal and Unconditional Amnesty; Black Moratorium Committee; Bread Not Bombs; Business Executives Move for Vietnam Peace
C: Cal Peace Fund; Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam; Committee for A Direct Attack on the Legality of the Vietnam War; Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars; Committee of Responsibility to Save War-Injured Vietnamese Children -- Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors; also Western Region and newsletter, CCCO news notes, 1972,1973 -- D: Draft Refuser Support; Draft Repeal Coalition; Downtown Peace Coalition -- E: Economic Action for Peace; Executive Committee for Business Students of UC, Berkeley
F-I: W.H. Freeman and Company; Friends of the Nine for Peace; Gay Mobilization Committee to End the War; GI March; Individuals Against the Crime of Silence; Indochina Peace Campaign; International Socialists -- M: Militant Forum; Mount Diablo Peace Center; Movement for a Democratic Military
N: National Committee to Defend the Rights of South Vietnamese Students; National United Front of Cambodia; National Council to Appeal the Draft; Neighbors for Peace; Northern California Asian Anti-War Conference; Northern California Draft Repeal Coalition; Northern California Peoples Coalition for Peace & Justice; Northern California Telephone War Tax Protest -- National Peace Action Coalition (NPAC) -- New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam -- Northern California Peace Action Coalition (NCPAC)
O-P: Oakland Draft Help; Oakland Mobilization; Patrick Chenoweth Defense Committee; Patriots for Peace; Peace Brigade (newsletter: Gentle Strength); Peace Center; Peace Treaty Office; People's Coalition for Peace and Justice; People's Ideas; Publishers for Peace -- R-S: Raza Contra La Guerra; The Resistance; Scientists and Engineers for Social and Political Action; S.F.-Bay Area Labor Assembly for Peace; Scientists and Engineers for Social and Political Action; Showdown; Socialist Party of San Francisco; Standard Oil Employees Peace Committee; Support Our Soldiers; Student Strike Committee -- Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in S.E. Asia
U-V: Undergraduate Planning Committee for Peace in Vietnam Day; Union ofVietnamese in the U.S.; United Asian Contingent; Veterans for Peace; Vietnam Moratorium Committee; Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- W-Y: War Resisters League; Waterfront Committee to End the War in Vietnam; Women United Against the War; Workers Coalition to End the War in Vietnam; Workers for People's Democracy; Workers League; Young People's Socialist League -- Misc: Boycott; Marches, demonstrations, etc.; Other Materials
BERKELEY COMMUNITY: This series focuses on issues of local concern to the Berkeley community. Included is material about several initiatives that appeared on ballots during this period, such as the Police and Community Control Initiative in 1971 and initiatives focused on rent control and the city's electric utility. (For material on Berkeley city elections, see Electoral Politics). The series is divided into subseries: Issues, Neighborhood Associations, Other Organizations, Special Interests and Miscellaneous.
Issues: Electric utility: Berkeley Citizens Against Electric Takeover; Berkeley "No on 8" Committee; Citizens Referendum Committee; Committee for Measure 8; Electricity and Gas for People; Refusers of Illegal and Oppressive Taxes (RIOT); Ocean View -- Peoples Park: ACLU, Berkeley Coalition; misc.; Publication: Street sheet, May 15, May 16-17, May 19
Issues: Police: Community Control of Police Initiative: In Support: April Coalition; Citizens Committee for Community Control; Northwest Berkeley for Community Control; Other Organizations: Black Caucus, Flatlands Neighborhood, Lawyer's Committee to Support :, Live Oak Committee for Community Control, National Committee to Combat Fascism, Peace & Freedom Party, Red Family, Social Workers Party; Misc. In Opposition: One Berkeley, South And West Berkeley Against ;, Sanford H. Kadish; Background; Misc.
Issues: Rent Control: Berkeley Citizens Alliance; Fair Rent Committee; Berkeley Tenant Organizing Committee; Berkeley Tenants Union; Candidates, Rent Control Commission; Misc. posters, etc.
Neighborhood Associations: Community Group for Neighborhood Unit 83AB; Flatland Association of Neighborhoods; North Berkeley Neighborhood; Solano-Peralta Neighborhood Association; South Campus Neighborhood Association; Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association; Misc.
Other Organizations: Berkeley Alternative Services Coalition; Berkeley City Council; Berkeley Planning Dept., Community Communications Gathering, (publication Directory of Berkeley Collectives); Consumer Cooperative of Berkeley; Consumers Group Legal Services; East Oakland Switchboard; The Family Store; KPFA
Special Interests: Childcare -- Ecology: The Ecology Center; Political Action Coalition for the Environment; Save San Francisco Bay Association --Health: Bay Area Consumers Health Care; Berkeley Community Methadone Program; Berkeley Community Health Project; Center for the Study of Health Maintenance Practices
Special Interests: Misc.: Berkeley Citizens Opposed to Overhead Lines; Berkeleyans for Fair Traffic Management; California Marijuana Initiative; East Bay Transit Riders for Exclusive Bus Lanes; Group Against Smoking Pollution; Neighborhood Preservation Initiative -- Youth: Berkeley Institute's Homestay; Berkeley Runaway Center; Berkeley Youth Alternatives; Jobs for Youth; St. George Homes; Youth Walks for Survival; Various. -- Misc.
CIVIL LIBERTIES: The Civil Liberties series is a limited collection of documents referring to some of the major national civil rights issues of the time. There is little of local interest, other than a few items from the Berkeley-Albany Chapter of the ACLU. For related material, see Minorities.
American Civil Liberties Union. Berkeley-Albany Chapter -- Defense committees: On behalf of Inez, H. Rap Brown, Angela Davis, Juan P. Farinas, Carlos Feliciano, Free Speech Defense Fund, Wayne Greene, Michael Johnson, Stephanie Kline, Huey Newton, San Quentin 6, Bobby Seale, John Sinclair, Billy Dean Smith, Soledad Brothers, Yvonne Wanrow
Miscellaneous: Arrest advice; Bay Area Movement Bail Fund; Connections; George Jackson Tribunal; Ghetto 5; National Committee Against Repressive Legislation; Northern Californians Against Repressive Legislation; Solidarity One Movement; Stop SB-1; TDA
ELECTORAL POLITICS: The bulk of the material in this series focuses on the 1971 Berkeley City Council election and the April Coalition effort to elect candidates D'Army Bailey, Rick Brown, Loni Hancock and Ira Simmons. Berkeley elections for the years 1967-1976 are also represented and there is folder-level material for the Berkeley Coalition. A small collection of material from the national political scene is also included, with folders of material about Congressman Ronald Dellums focusing primarily on his initial election campaign in 1970.
National: C: Shirley Chisholm; Communist Party; Ronald Dellums: 1970 Campaign literature; 1970 Campaign finance; Re-election and misc.; F-N: Fred Harris; Tom Hayden; Eugene McCarthy; Max McCarthy; George McGovern; Richard Nixon; P-Misc.: Peace and Freedom Party; Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention; Social Workers; Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); Misc.
Local: Statistics; Voter Registration -- Elections: 1967: Community for New Politics; 1969: Berkeley Coalition; 1971: Ballot and articles; Opposition; April Coalition -- Organization, Finance, Nomination, Workshops, Platform, Position Papers, Press Releases, Fliers, Post Election; 1972; 1973: April Coalition -- Nomination, Platform, Fliers, Post Election; Berkeley Four; Other Candidates; Other Organizations; D'Army Bailey Recall; 1974, 1975, 1976
Organizations: Community for New Politics Steering Committee; Berkeley Coalition: General, Finance Committee, Grassroots, Steering Committee; Misc.
INTERNATIONAL: A small series representing organizations concerned with international issues. Included is some Vietnam material not directly related to the United States war protest scene (see Anti-Vietnam War series).
Chile: Bay Area Ecumenical Committee of Concern for Chile; Non-Intervention in Chile; Other organizations -- Vietnam: Coalition to Free South Vietnamese Political Prisoners; Collecte Vietnam; Cultural Workers Front of Our America; Indochina Solidarity Committee; Medical Aid for Indochina. Various: Angola, China, Iran, Ireland, Middle East, Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, South East Asia, Soviet Union, Spain -- Organizations: 1973, 1976: Amnesty International; La Pena; Liberation Support Movement; Peoples Translation Service; Solidarity Films; U.S.-China Friendship Association; Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
LABOR AND ECONOMIC PROTEST: A small series with scattered representation from various labor organizations active in the Bay Area. The Labor subseries is strongest in material from the United Farm Workers including issues of several newsletters as well as fliers and mailings. The Economic Protest subseries includes material from organizations with long-term goals for changing the economic system, such as the IWW.
Labor: Agricultural Unions: Citizens for Farm Labor; National Farm Worker Ministry; United Farm Workers (UFW); UFW Newsletters: Cesar E. Chavez; Delano Food Caravan newsletter; Frontline strike news; The Picket line -- Government Unions: American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); Berkeley Alliance (for Postal and Federal Employees) -- Actions: Various strikes, boycotts, etc., including KQED strike -- Misc. -- Economic Protest: Various including: Coalition on National Priorities and Military Policy; Institute for the Pursuit of Economic Justice; Union Women's Alliance to Gain Equality (Union Wage)
MINORITIES: This series includes scattered material from various organizations active in promoting minority causes, with folder-level documentation from the Black Panthers. For related material, see the Civil Liberties series.
African Americans: Black Panthers; Others: East Bay Socialist Forum; Northern California Student Coalition Against Racism; United Black Educational Caucus -- Mexican Americans: Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Misc. -- Native Americans: Alcatraz Relief Fund, with poetry by Lone Wolf; American Indian Institute; Dennis Banks; California Indians for a Fair Settlement; Committee of Concern for the Traditional Indian; Wounded Knee Defense Fund; Misc.
PEACE: The Peace series focuses on organizations devoted to promoting world peace and brotherhood. Some material in this series augments material in the Anti-Vietnam series. There is folder-level material for these organizations: American Friends Service Committee; East Bay Women for Peace and Newsletter (issues 1969-1976); Ecumenical Peace Institute; San Francisco Women for Peace newsletter; Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Misc.: Bay Area Nonviolent Community; Center for Peace and Social Justice; Clergy and Laity Concerned; Coalition on National Priorities and Military Policy; Committee for International Peace Action; Northern California Ecumenical Council; Peace Brigade; Rainbow Family of Living Light; Women Strike for Peace; World Peace Committee, First Unitarian Church, Berkeley; World Peace Council Associates; Various
RELIGION: In this series, fliers and mailings document activities in local churches, mostly dealing with social rather than religious issues. -- Berkeley Free Church and sister organization, the Ecumenical Ministry in the Haight-Asbury; Unification Church; Various: Build the Earth; Christian World Liberation Front; First Unitarian Church of Berkeley; Friends of Jesus; Greater Richmond Inter-faith Program; Moishe Rosen; South Berkeley Community Church; Thomas Starr King School for Religious Leadership; Misc.
STUDENT MOVEMENT: This is a very limited series with only a small sampling of organizations addressing campus concerns. -- Berkeley: Associated Students of the University of California (AUSC); Free University; Third World College; Track and field group; Young People's Socialist League -- Other campuses: Merritt College; Rampart College; San Francisco State University; Stanford -- Misc.: American Federation of Teachers; San Francisco Public Library -- Alternate education catalogs: Bay Area School; East Bay Socialist School; Marxist Study Series
WOMEN'S ISSUES: This series provides a sense of the diversity of issues that were of particular concern to women. Organizations represented are primarily from the Bay Area and reflect some particular concerns of the region. -- Berkeley: Berkeley Women's Affirmative Action Union; Beyond Anger; Breakaway Berkeley; Women for Affirmative Action; Women's Health Center; National Women's Political Caucus; Second Page newsletter.
Student Organizations: Female Liberation Organizing Committee; Independent Campus Women -- Various Organizations: Bay Area Women's Political Caucus; California Women's Political Caucus; Committee for International Women's Day; East Bay Socialist Forum; Militant Bookstore; National Organization for Women; Sisters United; Wild Women's Publications; Woman to Woman; Women's History Research Center Library; Women's National Abortion Action Coalition; Women's Prison Coalition

Date:

1966 (issued)

Contents:

2448: Anti-Vietnam War: A-N. -- 2449. Anti-Vietnam War: O-Misc. -- 2450. Berkeley Community: Issues. -- 2451. Berkeley Community: Neighborhood Associations -- Civil Liberties. -- 2452. Electoral Politics: National. -- 2453. Electoral Politics: Local: Statistics -- Elections, 1971: Opposition. -- 2454. Electoral Politics: Local: Elections, 1971: April Coalition. -- 2455. Electoral Politics: Local: Elections, 1972 -- Misc.. -- 2456. International; Labor. -- 2457. Minorities; Peace. -- 2458. Religion; Student Movement; Women's Issues.

Subject:

n-us-ca
April Coalition.
Berkeley Coalition.
East Bay Women for Peace.
Ecumenical Peace Institute.
United Farm Workers.
Berkeley (Calif.) -- History
Berkeley (Calif.) -- Politics and government
Berkeley (Calif.) -- Social conditions
Elections -- California -- Berkeley
Protest movements -- California -- Berkeley
Radicalism -- California -- Berkeley
Social movements -- California -- Berkeley
United States -- Social conditions -- 1960-1980
Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975 -- Protest movements -- California
Campaign literature -- California -- Berkeley

Note:

Material transferred from the collection: Communique for new politics: CALIF* periodical; Photographs published in the Berkeley monitor: SMCII 17:2.
Gildersleeve Berkeley social protest collection
Unrestricted. Please credit California State Library.

Type:

Fliers (Printed matter)

Physical Description:

print
11 ms. boxes : ill.

Language:

English

Identifier:

MANUSCRIPT 2448-2458

Origin:

California

Copyright Note:

Unrestricted. Please credit California State Library.