Reaction to Dan White Verdict; Fruit Punch

Sykes very naughty boy so when the coal fired right time in the team's stored. States. And I think saying. You know what Strobel what will. Stop the. Long. Jump. And I'm. Sure you. Don't call me son of them on how they treat you the way that dance comes. On playing. Like a loose woman. On the end of the. World. Breaking glass the angry crowd and the screaming sirens that you just heard were

recorded Monday night at San Francisco's Civic Center. Tonight our show will focus on events occurring that night and the night that followed. Not since the late 1960s has the United States seen such a violent expression of its people's anger and frustration as was seen Monday night in San Francisco. But on Monday night in San Francisco the focus was different than that of the 16th on Monday night it was Gay people openly gay people lashing out their frustrations at a society who by its very structure stands as an oppressor to gay people. Rocks bottles fire strong angry words were thrown at the symbol of that society. City Hall and its protectors. The San Francisco Police Department. Throughout the history of gay people there have been scattered demonstrations against the society who opposes us. The events since then including the Stonewall riots of 1969 in New York City being the most famous Up till now. But never in the history of the gay movement has there

been an event such as this of such magnitude. A page in gay history has been turned. We have now emerged as a social force of the necessary dimensions to challenge the powers that be and to push society toward something new and better. Monday night fruit punch words with the over 10000 people protesting the Dan White decision as a direct attack on the dignity of gay people. Sandy seal I'm interviewing Sally Gearhart at 17th and Castro before March. How are you feeling about what's happening now. Increasingly angry increasingly scared. Very deeply hurt. Very much ashamed of the system that I put out. Not much faith in but at least a little bit of faith in sometimes that you know a jury of 12 good people in true could come in with something so obvious is this with a proper verdict. And I'm enraged that it hasn't happened. And what I think is happening all over this country

is that we are getting more and more military minded. There is a huge right wing backlash I think people are beginning to want to put people more into boxes they can't stand any differences. And the reason that Dan White shot Harvey Milk and George Moscone as well was because they were both supporters of gay people Harvey being gay and Mosconi being a supporter of gay people and and our connection now I think is with a broad based questioning of a system that would have us all put in boxes would like to have us all be just one way color coded into the proper sex role and particularly have our men be in that masculine mindset that masculine code that's going to make killers of them all and it's the women who have been suffering the most from this all these years. Now it's becoming gay people who are suffering from that. I say the whole nation is suffering from that. It's very scary that verdict very scary. Do I worry that I would like you long held tonight.

Now I'm going to run a city what we feel what I'd like to suggest that we hear you now in the meantime. I've got to write about the brother that I met him and you join with us. I think Dan took over in a terrible thing. I think a couple of times to go. And I'd like to feel booked out they. Thought of Augusta. On the face of it that. I don't have the right. Oh I think I'm from Paid be a thing you know is great you know I like to say I think those are your. Own to be tried. I think. If it was me if I would have been I think I would I have a lot of

frustrations too. I can't find. My when around is shot a couple people just to do something tonight because I was angry at him. I think they let me out of there. I'd be in there till doomsday if I didn't meet the chairperson. And you tell them ever they are. I hope they have a nice long sleep this night forever. Have you heard any reaction to that. Can you tell me what your signs are.

In the world. Eat eat eat eat. Oh yes yes. That was that was that was now Iraq walking out pope arriving aggro right before we enter the civic center was a chance to.

Crowd has assembled. Candles urbane posters are held on. The street the steps of City Hall the street in front of it back to the reflecting fountain. Spilled well over 5000 people assume it will I o o o o o o o o o. Police have arrived at city hall. There's a city hall. Squad here on this question of shopping going on. Right here at the doors of city hall the police are pushing people off. The grating in front of City Hall continues to get torn down.

Now. That. Was. Thanks. Was. Thank. God. That I am God. Was. Right.

Right. That was Sally Gearhart. The next speaker Amber's holiday was the most well received of all those who spoke at the Civic Center Monday night. Was. God. Thank you. Thank. God thank. God I. Was. Robbed. That. Was. What I was thank you thank you. 9000. Now. Now that. Was.

One of. Thousands. That are. Right. And. Wrong. About it. It. Was. I. Thank you. What do you think of what's going on right now where I think they should burn down the whole place has been delayed because it doesn't represent City Hall doesn't represent us. The city government isn't representing us we can burn it down it will make it again.

Thank you. Going on oh I'm just here because I feel like I had to register my feelings some way although I'm not gay or anything I just said he should've gotten so many more than five years. I'm not sure that I want is going on. You know who's right. Well I have and I think the right framing or from the Bernard Kerik. Storm city hall. Yeah my general feeling is that we shouldn't care but I think you know something that's run in markets. Real sad when somebody who murders legalized assassination I don't like to see it for years like I said the people who provided the human chain has now broken most cops are now bashing heads. Other people have indeed the people who had formed a human chain to protect city hall are now getting bashed by police. The people the people who had been protecting city hall are now getting dragged away by police

the police are now moving out into the crowd moving out into the crowd and just plowing about. Uh uh uh uh uh. Can you comment again on why you people got hit on the steps you'd been sitting there not moving and indeed protecting people. I don't know why I asked them why. But over what over half an hour you had been sitting there enough but you know it was an hour I got I don't know exactly how long really. OK now this again. Describe for us what was happening on campus when the police came and started beating people. We were just trying to cool people with no plan no strategy no leadership just whatever power of suggestion and persuasion we had. And everybody up there was just a just sort of got the same idea and came out here and there was an agreement that the cops wouldn't attack the people who were standing particularly that

agreement between whom there was an agreement between the people who were organizing the line and the police. That we would not be assaulted and we're standing there holding the line we moved the line gradually further and further away from city hall and then there was a rush on the entire crowd. And aimed at all the people who were holding the. City told. Them they. Saw. There were injuries. But then. I'm injured. All a blonde and. The police have literally. Beat in the crowd. The book your caring. For her in her. Place of her throw. Up the place moved into a group of people who were sitting down and. The band just plugged away. Cool and they

realized that obviously are nonviolent not moving was not going to work. Gay people proceeded to run. And now pretty much there's a. There's a 15 foot distance between us and the line of police who are coming down you can hear their voices. Finally they're getting their chance. They can you can see obviously see the speak back. And here they are. You ok. Sure her later that evening the police entered the Castro in large numbers causing the people to come out of the biased screaming get out of our neighborhood was was. Wrong was. What happened here tonight. I was down here at one o'clock having a drink can and I decide to go home and I go out and I noticed

there have a dozen cops standing in the middle of the intersection at there and all of a sudden there you know more cops everywhere and they start lining the street and a few people started swearing. Bottles at them and then they just go crazy. They chase people back into the bar where we thought we were safe and then they just come storming through here you know it's like Nazi stormtroopers they hassle people beat up people in the bar smashed at the bar and turn over all the tape I'm sticking my microphone through the broken window the front door that's was was broken by the police you know were you in there are you in the bar when yes I was we were sitting at the same table you know here we were all sitting at the same table relaxed having a cocktail I just ordered around the police bashing for every one of these window Billick letting everybody through that small little back

table saying get out and go home. Queers for me kicks me in the averages tell me get your fucking ass Now that's my woman. Police. They were all the way out to the back door and there was no way all these people could get through that tiny back door. I'm going to tell you how many at least 30 like that many at least 15 anywhere from 15 to 25 30 25 to 30. It happened so fast. People have been so I mean a final tables over the long hours. Billy club in the Premier League over came in saying what I have just you know tells me the glass that was breaking under the tables. You know I went on I guess they came in and I was I was hit on Shastri I believe. Finally got us out friend and I already knew that they had got into formation and barge the name gone baguettes gone faggots.

It really does make a difference you start listening to tomorrow night. They have cups of beer from his bar from all along the southern peninsula. You know these police don't have to deal with this kind of action too often so. Consequently when they're confronted with gay people they react from the. Gut level you see much more sort of the police. Have to deal with with I guess all the time because it will say that it was an anti faggot decision. I think it just is just the way the American system of justice for civil rights. You know you try to run innocent people into the ground and get people get off scot free. You know. 11. 11.

11. 11. 11. 11. 11. Tuesday night the tone was remarkably different on Castro Street. The long planned

celebration to commemorate Harvey Milk's birthday came off as planned without violence. I'd like now for you to welcome Meg Christian. And Holly. Bieber hand to head do you. Have it back. Dang I didn't know you how happy. I was to you saying. Thank you. Thank you. One of the things that I learned a long time ago from my parents who had. Worked in the labor movement trying to organize people was that it's a very long term struggle and that sometimes we

get outraged and angry at the way the system is the people who run the system and been around it so much we start to sometimes mirror that system. And I don't want to be like them. And we need so much. We need so much support from each other to learn how to be different you know to learn how to find new ways of relating to each other and to the world and to the planet so that we don't behave like the very people we're trying to change. So. This song is a song that I wrote when I heard a story about a woman who when they were coming to strip mined her land. In the Blue Ridge Mountains in Kentucky. She stood in front of her mountain while the bulldozers and the tractors were arriving and she stood there and she said if you didn't take my mountain this woman was 91 years old. She said if you're going to take my

mountain you're going to have to take me first. And she just stood there and waited. And these large macho machines and men could not run this 91 year old woman down ahead three. Don't miss the Melton's since first stone was my mother's own older and a kid Joe. Just take the mud dreams away with me. Watch it. You may. Have a big machine but I was was on a great big wall and. Just. My brain away without me died of it. And then it. Was. Some Not yet. Still you come here. Often Well we come here to visit our help

during the Multan since first I must order and you can. Just. Tell you the way I know you let me know you can. Just. Tell. My dreams away. It would. Let me know you can. Carry you the way. The next speaker is a long time resident of San Francisco and he's fought real hard and he was fighting before there were this many of us to back him up. So I'd like to welcome now Bob Ross. Look we had a very good meeting this morning with the mayor and we pulled the Harvey Milk and what we did was we made the allegations

and for the first time in the history of the city the mayor has ordered a full scale investigation into the police harassment brutality of last night. To Iraq. The. Tomorrow we are meeting with the chief of police. I don't love one o'clock in the morning and we have documented the whole evening on Castro Street last night. I know we are going to charge the police would retaliate harassment. They started a riot. Not us. Wait wait wait. I'd like to do shoot to a longtime friend of mine and yours a man who is for many many years for gay man and gay women and everybody in the

city. He's for human rights as we are for human rights. The Reverend Cecil Williams. Harvey Milk's said to the black kids and the black children in Mississippi let justice rode down like a mighty stream. Harvey Milk said to the white poor children in the Appalachians let justice roll down like a mighty stream. Harvey Milk said to the Native American children who live. This on the on the reservations let justice roll down like a mighty stream. Harvey Milk said to the children in the barrios let justice roll down like a mighty stream. Harvey Milk said to the Asian-American children throughout America in the concentration camps let justice roll down like a mighty stream. Harvey Milk said Do old people let justice roll down.

We have learned a lot about each other and about other kinds of people. And I think that now would be a good time for you to thank Ron Morris. Lynette Taylor and David Glasberg who are signing for the deaf. I'm so proud to be here tonight. When Friday President of the tavern guild because the night the last time I saw Harvey Milk was November 26 What happens to be my 40th birthday it was a day before the tragedy at city hall. Harvey called me at 11 o'clock and said Wayne I didn't buy you a birthday present but I'm baking you a birthday cake which was a carrot cake. Unfortunately the two lesbian friends of his who live next door had invited him to their house for Thanksgiving a couple days earlier. The dessert he took was a carrot cake. I had a taste of what I said. Harvey forget the cake we'll go have a beer OK.

One of the greatest contributions that came out of San Francisco during the No 1 6 campaign was the team of Harvey Milk and Sally Gary Hart. I've written a letter. To my friend Harvey Milk. The letter says. The letter says. Dear Harvey. Happy birthday. Happy Birthday Harvey.

Lots of things have been going on since you've been gone. Particularly in these last 24 hours and even though I want to tone down any political nature of anything that I say tonight my relationship to you has always been one of a political nature. And you know me well enough to know that I can't keep quiet on those issues. Hmm. OK. So what I'm saying to you is that I wish Harvey tonight I could say that we've been having some miracles happening here. I wish I could tell you that overnight 90 percent of the San Francisco police force discovered it was gay was one. We were. Worried. I wish I could tell you that because of the trouble we've been having here the gay population of every city in the world has decided to move to San

Francisco. We were. Or I wish I could tell you that overnight the criminal justice system of this state has undergone a great enlightenment and that since it's clear now that all inmates were functioning under a diminished capacity the doors of every prison in the state had been flung open for all of the inmates. Thanks but it's not so Harvey. It's not so yet that remains for us to do. The miracle hasn't happened yet. And yet tonight there is a much different tone to this crowd from last night. And I like it a lot better. Thanks Harvey. There's no way that I'll apologize for what happened in this city of yours last night. You've

always known. Thank you. You've always known perhaps better than I and maybe I'm beginning to learn it too that unless a movement moves in the streets there will be no ear that will hear us. Thank you. Any of that until we display until we display and ungovernable rage at injustices we will not even get the attention of a system that holds us down. Thanks for last night Harvey. Last night Harvey liked the man beating the donkey with a club. Last night we got the attention we needed. I don't I don't like it. You know I don't like it but it's done and the question now is is that all there is good if the violence had to come last night then let's not say that that's all that there is to us

as gay people because we are not a destructive people. The way the way in which we are different is the way in which we love one another. Thank you. And Harvey if the rage pours from us in a response like last night then we must let the world know that that is not all there is. I remind myself Harvey that gay people lesbians and gay men are trained not to destroy not destroy anything different or life loving or creative. We all agree on this Harvey that it is because our movement is based on love and creativity and not on hate and destruction. That against the code of the big man the big gun the tough guy mindset. We will survive and our values will prevail. And what Hey

thank you were worse. Thanks so now Harvey. Now Harvey now that we've got the attention of the donkey of the city of the state of the nation maybe even of the world now that we've shown that we won't take lying down the attacks on our lifestyle or our human dignity how do we get the donkey to move. I wish you were here Harvey because you had one of the most politically creative minds I've ever seen. You knew how we could use the very system itself to work against itself. And you knew what ideas would catch fire and work. We've been wringing our hands Harvey trying to figure what to do beyond the violent fantasies beyond the rage that we vented. And though I have some specific answers I don't have any panaceas

but one of the things that I think I can pledge to you is that I will continue to suggest that last during this last day we have experienced an incredible radicalizing in our community. Thank you. I would suggest Harvey that we have in the last 24 hours begun to see a connection between the gay teenager in Muncie Indiana and a woman in Korea working for a dollar a day making Barbie dolls. I would suggest Harvey that we're beginning as a gay community to see that there is a connection between a black man jailed for stealing in Alabama and a waitress who works for a minimum all her life of a dollar fifty an hour. I would suggest Harvey that as a gay community we have begun to see the

connections between a banana picker in South America who gets 25 cents a day and the fact that he already has not yet been ratified in the United States of America. Thank you. So I began to see that we begin to see that our lot is not just to stand alone but to gain the support and to support the causes of the majority of the people in this country who like us do not fit the masculine mold or the masculine ideology who are too dark to female too crippled too old too poor or too loving. Thank you and I promise you finally Harvey. That even though we have in our community some of us who have voted say against Proposition 7 or voted for Proposition 7 or voted for Proposition 13 or there are some of us who still gamble in Reno a state that has not yet ratified the E

R A. There are some of us who still put money before our human needs I still say Harvey. You can bet on it. That's beginning to change. Thank you. And what we would do with our energy our anger now with our fuller understanding is something quite different. We're learning very painfully Harby what you meant when you said where ever there is a sister or a brother that is suffering at the hands of the system. Gay people will be there. Thanks. And last tardy last I would say to you I would say to you what I've said to you often what you have said to me and what Sappho said. First and Rita May Brown said again and that we can all rely on among ourselves and our creativity and the love that keeps us alive and it will keep our value surviving

an army of lovers cannot fail the test. Oh ok so. It's my job to introduce him right now. No more than that. Introducing Harry Brett for the owner of the bank you own. The the Harvey Milk would be terribly terribly proud of his people and I. And I sure as hell don't have to tell you that Harvey Milk's people do not have a damn thing to apologize to anybody for ever. With us tonight 15000 people have gathered to demonstrate with their love that the spirit of Harvey Milk will always be alive

and are set for the back of the book. That. At the there yesterday was a tough one. But as I've talked to so many of you today and received so many wonderful calls from you and from gay people and from non gay people all over the United States. It seems to me there's something terribly important happened yesterday. That somehow we turned a corner yesterday and that Harvey Milk is listing somewhere. He knows that the gay movement has moved forward a great step because of what happened yesterday. Or the old let no one believe that the step that we have taken is a step from nonviolence to violence. We have suffered too much for at the

hands of violent people ever to go down that road. With us. The old. The the but let us say that never again will our people ever stand by and let Dan White people rule the day. With thanks. Thanks. Let us say with our new strength that we are tired of dealing with pay. And that from now on the people who would follow the spirit of Dan White are going to have to deal with the with the the. Some. Sleep.

I'm gonna say. Is a cue heard during this show is from TR B to the Tom Robinson band. This show has been produced at KPFA Radio in Berkeley California. And for their outstanding coverage during the riots and sub of subsequent events. Special commendation goes to Fred Brown guard and Michael ruts of fruit punch. Steve O'Neill and the people from ravens head communications. The production and board operation by Andy Seale Richard Thomas and myself can't move. Thank you and good night. And same.

Thing. I. Saw. A. Game going on long. Island. Eh eh. Eh eh. Eh eh. Luck. Club. Leg. Leg. Or leg.