They Acted Like Nazis

The sixties (the whole decade, not just the last half) was a time of polarization and superficial judgement. People were judged "good" or "bad" depending upon the length of their hair, the uniforms or the clothing they wore, the color of their skin, and whether they supported or opposed the war. When you attended public rallies for justice and peace at that time, how did you perceive the police and the National Guard? How did they perceive you?

I perceived much of the sixties not so much of a time of "superficial judgement" but a time when we could drop the superficial, the uniforms, the masks, and just be people. From my point of view, we asked all people to do so. We were saying to people, "here's your chance to remember that before you were a cop, a politician, a KKK member, a soldier, you were someone's child who loved the whole world."

In 1959, on the Easter Peace Walk, people threw a lot of garbage and yelled abusive things. The police (I especially remember San Bruno] didn't stop them and a couple policemen felt we deserved the abuse. That year we were "commies." We were spending nights at churches, mostly sleeping on floors or lawns in sleeping bags, and I remember the SF Examiner making a big deal out of "coed sleeping arrangements." I felt scared and sorry for the people who hated us so much. (I kept a low profile because I was a runaway.)

In 1962 (I think, or early '63), Rockwell, then head of the US Nazi Party, came to speak at the Univ. of Minnesota. There was a large movement to bar him from speaking. A group of us felt that he should be allowed to speak. (1st, you can't disallow freedom of speech to ANYONE; 2nd, it's better to know what the enemy's agenda is) We were on the steps of a building and the people who didn't want Rockwell to speak started throwing rocks and things. We were pushed up against the glass doors, I turned around and campus police were holding the doors shut and wouldn't let us in. The glass broke. We were pretty bruised but no one was seriously injured. I was terrified. I couldn't believe that so many people were screaming, and full of hate over what seemed to me to be a quite simple freedom. They acted like Nazis!

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