- Ellen Antoniewicz: Today we are
pleased
to introduce Stu Levitan
as part of the Wisconsin Historic
al Museum's
History Sandwiched In lecture ser
ies.
The opinions expressed today ar
e those of the presenters
and are not necessarily those
of the Wisconsin Historical Socie
ty
or the museum's employees.
Stu Levitan is an award-winning
print
and broadcast journalist and a
mainstay of Madison media
in government since 1975.
He is the author of Madiso
n in the Sixties
andMadison: The Illustrated
Sesquicentennial History Vol 1.
He has written extensively on pol
itics, culture,
and Madison history for seve
ral publications,
and currently produces the
Madison in the Sixtiespodcast
for WORT FM Community Radio,
where he also serves as vice pre
sident of the board.
He hostsAccess: City Hall on t
he Madison City Channel,
and previously produced the
interview program
Books and Beats with Stu Levi
tanon 92.1 The Mic.
After leaving daily journalism i
n 1980,
Stu served five years on the Dan
e County
Board of Supervisors and spent
27 years as a labor mediator
and arbitrator for the
State Employment Relations Commis
sion.
Stu has also chaired several city
of Madison commissions,
including the Community Deve
lopment Authority,
Landmarks Mission, and Plan Commi
ssion.
This fall, he will present a co
urse on urban renewal
and civil rights in the 60s
through the UW Division of C
ontinuing Studies.
Here today to discuss Madison in
1969,
please join me in welcoming
Stu Levitan.
[audience applauding]
- Thank you, Ellen.
It is of course a great plea
sure and honor
to come back to History Sandwich
ed In,
and especially to do so on behal
f
of the Wisconsin Historical Socie
ty Press.
My thanks to the Historical Muse
um for hosting,
and of course to the Historical
Society Archives Library
and Foundation without whom, all
of whom were essential
to the writing and publication
ofMadison in the Sixties.
My talk today is in the follow
ing parts.
First, we'll mark the golden ann
iversary
of the three big stories from 196
9,
student anti-war protest,
the Mifflin Street block party
riot,
and the Black Studies Strike.
Then we'll step back and look a
t the big picture
with an overview of the five
distinct issues,
some of them unique to this
place and time
that really dominated the decade
.
Some are gone, some remain.
And I've left some time for ques
tions and comments.
As it happens, I am celebrating
an anniversary today too.
It was on this day, 44 years ago,
that Dave Zweifel
offered me the job as the Washin
gton correspondent
forThe Capital Times, whic
h is what indirectly
brings us here today.
Madison 1969, a tick over 171,00
0 people live here.
Several things which would define
the 70s and 80s and beyond
begin in 1969.
The Mifflin Street Community
Co-op opens,
the Madison Tenant Union organize
s and
has its first rent strike.
Names in the political news incl
ude Republican attorney
Bill Dyke, who defeats Democr
atic attorney
Toby Reynolds for mayor.
Eugene Parks is elected Madi
son's first
African-American alderman, and Mr
s. Ruth Doyle
becomes Madison's first fema
le president
of the school board.
This is, excuse me, State Street
, west of Lake
in the summer of 1969.
Planners want to turn the last f
our blocks
into a full pedestrian mall,
but the business owners are p
rotesting.
While the city considers closin
g a small street,
it opens a large road, Campus Dri
ve,
a freeway between Babcock Drive
and Farley Avenue opens
in November, taking 15,000 cars
a day
off old University Avenue.
And a few days later, the new at
hletic director,
Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, fires
the failed football coach John C
oatta,
whose teams had won just 3 g
ames out of 30
in his three years.
[audience murmuring]
But Hirsch has some sympathy f
or Coatta,
and he tells reporters that s
tudent unrest
has made it difficult to recruit
football players
quote "because their parents don'
t want to send their sons
"into a situation such as we had
here."
And the situation such as we had
here in 1969 was pretty bad,
and it was getting worse.
As the war in Vietnam escala
tes and continues
and anti-war protests grow,
some activists edge into violence
, and city, state,
and university officials step up
their crackdown.
It's a vicious cycle of prote
st, rejection,
resistance, repression, leading
to seven new laws
this year alone dealing with
protesters.
And the city gets in the act, emp
owering the mayor
to impose a street-clearing
curfew
and to call out auxiliary troops
.
"We are in a period of unlawful c
onduct bordering
"on outright rebellion and an
archy,"
police chief Wilbur Emery tells
graduating cadets.
And the courts are quote "buildin
g legal curtains
"around the criminal while restri
cting the police officer."
This is the police chief of Madis
on, Wisconsin,
hired by the Police and Fire C
ommission,
appointed by the liberal mayor, I
van Nestingen,
criticizing the war in court and
the Miranda decision.
Former Secretary of State Dean R
usk gives a talk
at the Memorial Union in late Au
gust.
It's eight months since he left
office,
and there are no uniformed police
on the scene.
So when a crowd of about 150, led
by members
of the Young Socialist Alliance,
heave rocks at his car
as he is driving away, pound
on other cars,
and partially blocked traffi
c, there are no arrests.
A few weeks later, Madison police
inspector
Herman Thomas tells an inter
agency meeting
at the governor's residence that
"Mifflin Street radicals
"are gathering machine guns a
nd grenades,
"and the consensus is to expect
bloodshed,
"probably a death on campus this
year."
Third week of September, there's
a training exercise
at the National Guard Armory on
Wright Street.
Quarter to three in the mornin
g, a bomb,
about 20 sticks of dynamite
with a timing device explodes,
doing $15,000 in damage to the ar
mory
and the training equipment.
It's about an hour after a simi
lar explosion damages
the Federal Building in downt
own Milwaukee.
October 15th is Moratorium Day.
15,000 fill the Field House for
a series of speeches
against the war in Vietnam.
It is the largest crowd in t
he Field House
since the JFK campaign appearance
in October 1960.
And after the speeches, almost
the entire crowd marches
to the Capitol through the co
ld rain,
filling State Street with fli
ckering candles
and shimmering umbrellas from Mal
l to Square.
At the Capitol, all falls to a h
ush
but for the tolling of the be
ll of Grace Episcopal Church
for an ecumenical memorial servi
ce
for the more than 900 Wisconsin
servicemen
who had died in the war so far.
As each name is read, a cand
le is extinguished.
The mournful ceremony ends about
midnight,
the war goes on.
After entertaining thousands
at the Dane County Memorial Coli
seum on November 13th,
Peter, Paul and Mary perform anot
her full set for free
at the crushingly crowded morato
rium midnight vigil
at the University Catholic Center
on lower State Street.
At both shows, they urge fans
to join the march on Washington
that weekend, and many do.
The next day, the regents reinst
ate curfew
for freshmen women under 21, and
raise to 21
the minimum age at which students
can live off campus
without parental permission.
The president of the regents, Dr.
James T. Nellen,
team physician for the Green
Bay Packers,
calls it quote, "a vote against
the permissiveness
"that is going on in universitie
s."
And as the decade closes, Govern
or Warren Knowles
signs the year's seventh law deal
ing with protesters,
setting a minimum one semester
suspension from attendance
or employment for anybody convic
ted of seizing
a university building or forcefu
lly disrupting
classes or traffic.
This is something that thousands
of students had just done
in the Black Studies strike.
Now only a few were arrested and
charged, but from now on,
everyone who blocks a building o
r blocks traffic
knows that if they are arrest
ed and convicted,
they will be suspended from empl
oyment or attendance.
Now, whether this would prove as
great a disincentive
as the state hopes remains to be
seen.
And it really doesn't seem so bec
ause three days later,
there's an SDS action against a
Quonset hut
that the ROTC uses for instructio
ns called T16.
It's at the corner of Babcock Dr
ive and Linden Drive.
And it leaves four campus policem
en injured
and four protesters in jail.
Then about 200 move through camp
us,
smashing windows in the Army Mat
h Research Center
and Bascom Hall.
A group of about 20 attacks
the Peterson Administration build
ing,
where they smash the large plate
glass windows,
and destroy thousands
of the hated photo identification
cards.
And if you can see the byline
on this story,
is Leo F. Burt.
4:15 in the morning on Decemb
er 28th, Carl Armstrong,
a recent UW dropout working
for Gino's Restaurant and Pizzer
ia,
breaks three windows in T16,
tosses in two one-gallon jugs f
illed with gasoline,
and lights a match.
The fire department saves the bu
ilding,
and police track Armstrong's foot
prints in the snow
to Tripp Circle, where they l
ose the trail
and never develop any suspects.
The Badger Army Ammunition Plant
in Baraboo.
On December 31st, Armstrong, a M
adison native
from the East Side, gets his brot
her Dwight to steal a plane
from Morey Airfield where Dwight
works,
to make a bombing run on this fa
cility.
About two hours into 1970, Carl
drops three makeshift bombs
of ammonium nitrate and fuel
oil, it's called an ANFO bomb.
They fall harmlessly into the sn
ow and do not explode.
Driving back to Madison, Carl is
pulled over by the police,
who do not smell the kerosene on
his pants
and only give him a warning for
speeding.
[audience chuckling]
This is the start of the New Year
's Gang,
whose number would soon come to i
nclude
the aforementioned Leo Burt, who
literally embodied
the growing radicalism ofTh
e Daily Cardinal.
The New Year's Gang will und
ertake a series
of firebombings and other action
s,
culminating in the ANFO bombin
g of Sterling Hall
at 3:42 in the morning of Aug
ust 24, 1970
in an unsuccessful attempt to d
amage
the Army Mathematics Research Cen
ter.
The explosion destroys valuab
le research,
does about $2 million in physica
l damage,
and kills postdoctoral physics
researcher Robert Fassnacht,
who has no relation to the Army M
ath Research Center.
And there are 35 other war-re
lated deaths
in Madison this decade.
1969 brought seven funerals,
including two-time Purple Hea
rt recipient
Corporal Charles Le Bosquet.
That's down from nine in 1967 and
'68.
And we have two 22-year-old hero
es among our number.
Marine Sergeant David B. Thompso
n
is awarded the Silver Star for
conspicuous gallantry
and the Navy Commendation Medal.
And Army First Lieutenant Ricky
B. Brantmeyer
is awarded the Bronze Star for he
roism in ground combat.
So that's a brief overview of th
e state
of the anti-war protest move
ment in 1969.
Now let's go to the Black Studie
s Strike.
The Black Studies Strike was th
e most successful
political protest of the decade.
Students issued a series of dema
nds
and got several of them satisfie
d,
including the most important one.
At the time, when there were abou
t 500 black students
out of 35,500 on campus,
the university's academic progra
m for Black Studies
consisted of two courses, a semin
ar,
and a series of guest lecturers.
It was not enough.
Friday February 7th, 1969,
the Black People's Alliance pres
ents the 13 demands,
starting with a degree-grant
ing program
in a Black Studies Department,
organized and controlled by blac
k students and faculty,
with students having veto power
over personnel decisions.
They also want to double the blac
k enrollment and more.
Then about 300 students, most
ly white,
marched up Bascom Hill and enter
seven classrooms,
enter classrooms in seven buildin
gs
to explain their demands.
Some professors and students are
intimidated,
but there are no arrests or serio
us incidents.
A group of about 1,500 do the sa
me thing on Monday.
The Reverend Jesse Jackson is o
n campus Friday night
for WSA symposium on the black re
volution,
curated by the same woman, Marge
ry Tabankin,
who would organize the Moratorium
Day speeches.
Jackson tells an overflow crowd
in the Great Hall
that the 13 demands, quote,
"should be followed to the lette
r."
And from the same stage the
next afternoon,
black student leader Willie Edwa
rds tells a large crowd
quote, "The only power we have i
s the power to disrupt,
"and if the 13 demands are not me
t,
"this university will not functio
n."
Afterwards, about 600 students c
hanting
"2, 4, 6, 8, organize and smash
the state!"
march on the Field House
to disrupt the basketball game w
ith Ohio State.
150 helmeted police with riot sti
cks and tear gas
arrive barely five minutes before
the students do.
If they had not arrived at th
e Field House when they did,
Chancellor Edwin Young tells
the regents,
"there would have been a great de
al of violence."
There are scuffles at various g
ates,
and the governor's black Rambler
is vandalized.
Four students are arrested,
most of the 11,000 basketball fan
s
are unaware of the disturbance.
The WSA calls the university a ra
cist institution
and supports the strike.
The student senate creates a bail
fund.
Tuesday, a new tactic.
A non-penetrable picket line stan
ding
in the schoolhouse door to shu
t the campus down.
Some fist fights break out, bu
t the lines generally hold
and hundreds leave or are turned
away.
Strikers have effectively seized
control
of several university buildings.
When close to 200 city and co
unty officers
sweep up the hill,
and the obstructers, as they say,
make like steam and vaporize.
[audience chuckling]
There are more blockades on W
ednesday
and the cops are overwhelmed.
So Mayor Otto Festge and Chancell
or Young
and other campus leaders ask Gove
rnor Warren Knowles
to call out the National Guard,
which he does, 900 at first.
The guardsmen keep buildings open
,
but they also trigger a defensiv
e reaction
by the students,
causing strike participation to i
ncrease sharply.
That afternoon, close to 7,000 s
tudents,
that's almost 20% of the entire s
tudent body,
take to the streets under a tigh
t control
by the black marshals,
and they block University Avenue
for hours.
Knowles activates another 1,200
Guardsmen.
That night, another group of abo
ut 8,000 students,
this is more than 20% of the stu
dent body,
hold a torchlight parade that wi
nds
through State Street and Langdo
n Street.
It is self-policed and orderly,
with only a few racist catcalling
by onlookers.
Things calm down on Friday, and
the guard leaves
the central campus.
There's a Valentine's Day march
to the Capitol
on February 14th.
It goes to the Capitol and back a
nd disrupts traffic,
but again is disciplined and peac
eful,
as is another march, another
torch-lit march
of about 1,000 that night.
The strike never really gets goi
ng the second week,
it is over by Tuesday,
but for a brief outburst of vanda
lism a week later.
Over the 11 days of the strike,
attendance has been off by about
10% in classes on the hill,
while on the western campus, thin
gs were pretty much normal.
A few days later, a special fa
culty committee recommends
the university establish a Blac
k Studies Department,
and in early March, the full facu
lty endorses the idea.
And on December 1st, the faculty
unanimously accepts
the detailed plans and academic p
rogram
for a degree-granting Department
of Afro-American Studies,
the primary goal of the strike.
And proponents hope the regents
and Coordinating Committee
for Higher Education will give fi
nal approval,
and the department will start in
the fall of 1970.
The Mifflin Street Block Party Ri
ots of May 1969.
Invitation to a block party
that becomes a three-night riot a
nd an example
of how history happens.
The great radical leader Tom Hay
den
called the student neighborhood a
round Mifflin
and Basset streets "one of Americ
a's liberated zones."
But in the angry year of 1969, it
becomes a war zone.
That is the Zig-Zag man, he's th
e logo of a French company
that makes rolling papers, origin
ally for cigarettes,
by now mainly for marijuana.
But unlike the real logo, he is
wearing
a bandolier of bullets.
Under the inscription, "armed lov
e and the command
"to off the pig."
This worries police chief Wilbur
Emery,
so he schedules extra men and co
ordinates
with Sheriff Jack Leslie for
100 or so Dane County deputies
to be in reserve.
He does not bother to consult wi
th Mayor Bill Dyke,
who has only been in office for t
wo weeks.
Detective Tom McCarthy, whose fa
ce was fractured by a brick
at the Dow Protest in 1967,
is looking forward to the weekend
.
"We're gonna bring the war to Mif
flin Street," he vows.
Now the hippies and the heavies
and the hangers-on
of Mifflin Street don't really c
are
that they don't have a permit to
block the street.
Many neighborhoods throw block
parties without a permit.
There was just a block party a
week before on Gilman Street,
no permit and the police actually
diverted traffic.
That's not gonna happen today.
Mid-afternoon on Saturday May 3r
d, groups are gathering
on the porches and lawns, groovi
ng to the tunes
coming from Ronnie Bergman's hous
e at 512 West Mifflin St.
That's when the police department
's number two man,
Herman Thomas, and a few officers
respond
to a purported noise complaint.
It does not go well.
The music plays on, kids edge off
the sidewalk
into the street.
Thomas goes and gets eight more
men,
this time in riot gear.
"We're going down there to crack
some skulls," he tells them
and he returns to the scene abou
t 4:15.
He orders the crowd to clear the
street
and is met with vulgar catcal
ls, a few rocks,
and a roasted pig's head on a st
ick.
[audience murmuring]
Baton-wielding police start push
ing into the crowd
and making a few arrests, includ
ing Alderman Paul Soglin.
[audience exclaiming]
Whom they pull up and out of his
1959 Triumph convertible
and arrest for driving on the str
eet
they are supposedly there to kee
p open.
[audience chuckling]
Soon, 30 officers in riot gear a
re in the street,
and about 500 youth are on p
orches and roofs,
and a handful are hurling rocks
and bottles.
When Thomas fully unleashes his
men, they charge
into the crowd with riot masks on
and nightsticks up,
and are met with a hail of r
ocks and bricks.
Thomas fires some tear gas an
d withdraws,
and calls in the 100 county and
university officials
and officers standing by.
For the next several hours, smal
l affinity groups
engage in hit and run battles wi
th police,
often in coordinated attacks and
ambushes.
County deputies pump out massive
amounts of tear gas,
and a toxic cloud settles over t
he three flats.
The crowd blocks Bassett Street w
ith burning barricades,
cops knock them down and they're
set back up.
Finally, an uneasy calm settles
over the neighborhood around mid
night.
It does not last.
Sunday, as hundreds of youth con
gregate
and an equal number of officers
approach,
Mayor Dyke again refuses to gran
t a temporary street permit,
and threatens to use his new powe
r
to declare a street-clearing
curfew.
That afternoon, Alderman Soglin
is arrested a second time
for unlawful assembly while stan
ding by himself
near his Bassett Street apartment
.
When jailers won't take alderwom
an Alicia Ashman's check
for his $507 bail, Fire Capta
in Ed Durkin,
president of Firefighters Loc
al 311,
authorizes the use of union funds
.
The police department and the Po
lice and Fire Commission
are not amused, especially s
ince Soglin
was one of the few aldermen to s
upport Ed Durkin
when he took local 311 out on an
illegal strike
just a few months before.
If everyone wonders what the dist
inguishing factor
about Madison is, it's this, we h
ad a fire captain
and a union leader in the 19
60s in Ed Durkin,
who took the union out on two
illegal strikes.
What did we do to him?
We made him chief.
[audience laughing]
That's what you need to know abou
t Madison, Wisconsin.
Alderman Eugene Parks, electe
d in April
as the city's first African-Amer
ican alderman,
is also arrested for not leaving
when police tell him to.
If you know Gene Parks, he doesn'
t do
what police tell him to do.
A jury finds Alderman Parks inno
cent,
but the council breaks with i
ts usual practice
and refuses to pay his legal fees
,
which his attorney Dick Cates
then waives.
Soglin is convicted of failing
to obey a lawful command
from a police officer and pa
ys a small fine.
The unlawful assembly charge agai
nst Soglin and 20 others
are dropped, because Inspecto
r Thomas broke the law
when he declared an entire six b
lock area
an unlawful assembly.
After dark, the riot resumes as k
ids and cops
battled throughout downtown.
Late Sunday night, some Mifflande
rs
come to the City County Building
where the City Council is holdin
g an informal meeting
in the vain hope of meeting with
Mayor Dyke.
But a horde of high school kids a
nd other townies
beat them up while sheriff depu
ties turn their backs
and do not intervene.
"After last night," Sheriff Le
slie says,
"they deserve everything they ge
t."
Early Monday evening, Mayor Dyke
comes to ground zero,
speaking to a jeering crowd of a
bout 1,000
from the steps of the new Miffli
n Co-op,
which you see still has its old
white front grocery sign.
He rejects Soglin's demand for
amnesty and tells the people
they have half an hour to depart
,
they build new barricades instead
.
And soon after Dyke leaves,
400 officers from several jurisd
ictions
resume their tear gas offensive
and the third night riot is on.
The Monday night riot is the wor
st yet.
Tear gas blankets the area,
with rocks thrown
and trash fires set from the fra
ternities
to the southeast dorms.
Police fire tear gas at girl
s giving first aid
in front of the Hillel Foundatio
n.
They fire tear gas into a gr
oup of professors
on the porch at the University C
lub.
Students studying for finals hav
e to leave
the Memorial Library because tear
gas
is coming up into the building.
Police finally exhaust their supp
ly of tear gas canisters
and start throwing empty soda can
s at students
to try and get them to disperse.
And the students are fighting bac
k,
and not just with projectiles,
but by firebombing
three city, state, and univer
sity offices.
For the second May in three years
,
student chaos in downtown street
s shuts down
the city bus service, and the ci
ty buses
are driven by teamsters.
So the protest movement has
scared away
football players and teamsters.
[audience chuckling]
Tuesday morning, there are shatte
red storefronts
up and down State Street,
86 people have been treated for
injuries,
the student senate puts $1,9
00 into a bail fund
for the 100 or so arrestees.
The city and county have spent
about $80,000 for overtime
and emergency costs, and Madison
has again made its mark
with the first lifestyle riot of
the era.
This is three weeks before Stone
wall.
On Tuesday, a citizens group cal
led
the Committee of Thirty gets Dyke
to withdraw the police,
so their volunteers can go int
o the neighborhood
to interview the kids to find out
not just what happened, but why.
And the group is organized and le
d by a young attorney
with the La Follette Sinykin firm
,
[audience exclaiming]
Shirley S. Abrahamson, with help
from businessman
philanthropist Lowell Frautschi
and the Reverend Max Gabler.
Dozens of volunteers spent three
days hearing
about mean cops and bad landlord
s.
And the committee tells Dyke
, and he orders
a comprehensive inspection of all
140 buildings
in the core Miffland area.
221 citations for building and sa
nitary code later,
Dyke declares there is consid
erable legitimacy
to the tenant complaints.
Now while there's peace in the s
treets,
there is no peace in the suites a
t City Hall.
Soglin pleads for a four-hour bl
ock party permit
for Saturday, and even though Ma
yor Dyke now supports
the request and praises Sogl
in for quote,
"his desperate and significant
attempt to bring peace,"
the council denies the permit 17
to 3.
"These people have shown a la
ck of respect
"for anything honest and decent,
"
Eastside Alderman Ralph Hornbeck
says.
"They've also shown they plan to
have a party
"whether or not they have a perm
it."
And the threatened showdown is
averted only when Ed Durkin,
who is popular with students
even before he bailed Soglin out
, invites everyone
to his large spread on the West
Side.
Dyke provides two city buses
free of charge,
the Mifflin Co-op gives the beer
,
and about 400 Mifflanders have a
pretty good party
and pig roast.
And the national media take note.
"Campus riots in many parts of t
he country
"have given some people the idea
"there are too many radicals,"
CBS newsman Murray Fromson report
s.
"But perhaps in fairness, it sho
uld be said
"there are too few Ed Durkins."
In June, Mayor Dyke appoints a t
hree-man panel
to investigate why and how things
got so out of hand.
Their report blames both sides an
d pleases neither.
Now among its findings, that Po
lice Chief Emory's policy
of responding with overwhelming
force before it's needed
actually helped provoke the riot
.
The committee finds that the po
lice did not use tear gas
quote, "until they had been pelte
d with missiles,"
but fault Emory and Thomas for
the initial response.
Quote, "The second additional pr
ecipitating factor
"was the bringing of police attir
ed in riot gear
"to Mifflin Street before there h
ad been
"any actual violence."
Police show up in riot gear,
the kids go,
"Hey, you want a riot, okay, we'l
l give you a riot."
Once the violence began, the repo
rt continues,
"training proved inadequate i
n the case
"of a certain few officers who, d
uring the disorders,
"engaged in beatings, improper u
se of riot sticks,
"and indiscriminate and improper
use of tear gas.
"More and better training in thi
s field is needed."
Stores along State Street with s
hattered windows
and lost inventory file claims
for $8,000 under a state law
making cities responsible for da
mages during riots.
The day after Christmas, the city
denies all claims.
Now this was a time when the Badg
er football team
had gone 0-19-1 over the past t
wo years.
And theWisconsin State Journal
columnist Roundy Coughlin
had a unique perspective on
the first two nights of riots.
"If the football team could get
a march on
"like a lot of the students did S
unday night,
"they would go to the Rose Bowl.
"
[audience laughing]
And a few days later, a sibling
city's underground press
pays respect on its front page,
and this is just a 100 miles
north of the Rose Bowl stadium i
tself.
"On Wisconsin," the Berkel
ey Barbdeclares.
So those are the highlights of 19
69.
I want to take a few minutes now
and step back
and give you the big picture, and
the five issues
that dominate the decade.
At one time or another, each
of these issues
was the most important issue
in city politics and government,
and often had a direct and ov
erwhelming impact
on city elections.
Law Park, landfill on the shores
of Lake Monona,
here being used as a waterfro
nt parking lot.
And as the decade opens,
the most politically signific
ant issue was building
or blocking Monona Terrace,
the Civic Auditorium and Conventi
on Center
Frank Lloyd Wright designed for t
his location.
It was the big issue in 1960,
and loomed so large in 1961 that
Henry Reynolds
ran for mayor, that it was t
he main reason
that Henry Reynolds ran for mayo
r, and killing it
was the main issue in a referend
um in 1962.
It was the dominant issue for th
ose three years.
This is Frank Lloyd Wright's las
t iteration,
finished seven weeks before his d
eath.
The project was approved by refer
endum in 1954,
contracted for in 1956, killed
by state legislation in 1957,
revived by state legislation in 1
959,
put out to bid in 1961.
That's how close we came to bu
ilding it.
We put it out to bid in 1961,
and was abandoned by referendum a
year later.
Henry Reynolds and the other cons
ervative businessmen
who fought Monona Terrace figure
d
if they delayed it long enough
through litigation and legislatio
n,
inflation alone would make i
t too expensive,
and it would be abandoned.
And they were right.
Now it is heresy to say, but I th
ink in a way
those who fought Monona Terr
ace did us a favor,
because it had the same size thea
ters and art gallery
as the Overture Center for the A
rts.
If we had built this, I think it
is highly unlikely
that Jerry Frautschi would have
given us
another $205 million to replace i
t.
Which would have been too bad, b
ecause Overture
is such a much better building,
and the Monona Terrace is in suc
h a poor location
for a performing arts center.
There just aren't enough bars and
restaurants,
and it's got lousy mass transit.
And even as a convention center,
it would have failed
because it only has 45% of t
he convention space
in the Monona Terrace that we fi
nally did build.
And obviously there would be no
way
to expand from Wright's design.
There was another effort in
the late 60s
by Wright's son-in-law, Will
iam Wesley Peters.
It was not as politicized, but
it met the same fate.
The construction budget did n
ot satisfy
the construction drawings, an
d the project was abandoned.
And this would have been just ph
ase one of Monona Basin,
a staggering statement of archit
ectural ambition.
Three miles from Olin Park to La
w Park,
this would have been John Nolan'
s
grand esplanade on steroids.
These plans are as far as it got
.
The next dominant issue was
urban renewal.
Especially what city staff
and the Madison Redevelopment Au
thority did
to the eastern tip of the Gr
eenbush addition.
The Bush was a 60-year-old neighb
orhood
that was international, inte
rgenerational,
interreligious, and interracial.
But unfortunately had inadequate
infrastructure,
so the MRA turned this into this
,
the Triangle Urban Renewal Area.
It is to Madison's shame that we
knowingly destroyed
this important community without
a second thought.
It is further insulting to s
ee how poorly
the program was planned and exec
uted,
and especially how it failed to p
rovide
timely, affordable replacement ho
using.
But I do not think the motive
was malevolent,
I do not think its purpose was
to break up the neighborhood.
The city didn't care about th
e neighborhood,
the city only cared about street
s and sewers
and building codes and the highes
t use of land.
The community was not the target
but yes, it was collateral damage
, and the city
was okay with that.
Urban renewal was a major issue
when Mayor Reynolds
won re-election in 1963,
and was on the ballot itself in 1
964
when it barely survived a referen
dum
to end urban renewal and abolish
the Redevelopment Authority.
Reynolds, both newspapers, and th
e entire political
and business elite opposed that r
eferendum,
and it failed by only 367 votes
out of 37,000 cast.
Think how angry people must have
been at Urban Renewal
to have come that close to reje
cting years and years
of future federal aid.
But wait till you hear the kicke
r.
Now the hardest part about urban
renewal in '62 and '63
was finding replacement housing
for the displaced black househol
ds.
With no law at any level against
housing discrimination,
non-whites here had access to 27%
of the rental units
in the city, and 10% of the
housing for sale.
Housing discrimination was so
universal,
it was reflected on the federal
forms.
Of almost 19,000 housing units in
the city of Madison,
non-whites had access to 3,500, t
hat's less than 19%.
That is why, as the decade opene
d, 76%
of Madison non-whites lived in j
ust four census tracts
and eight aldermanic wards had
no non-whites at all.
So the civil rights movement was
a big issue
throughout the decade, and it was
a very big deal
in December 1963, when Mayor Rey
nolds,
a conservative white businessman,
cast the tie-breaking vote
to enact the first law or ordinan
ce
in the state of Wisconsin to ba
n housing discrimination.
And the principle drafter of tha
t historical ordinance
was that young attorney whom
we've already met.
[audience chuckling]
Another indication that Madis
on in the 60s
really was a special place.
A figure of statewide historical
significance,
the first female Justice of the S
upreme Court,
the first female Chief Justice, w
as a leading member
of the mayor's Commission on Hum
an Rights,
and wrote the ordinance creating
the Equal Opportunities Comm
ission.
And Shirley Abrahamson was no
t the only future
Supreme Court Chief Justice to p
lay an important role
in local politics.
Here's Rollie Day, chairman
of the Madison Housing Authority,
which tried to build public hous
ing for the people
displaced by the Redevelopment Au
thority,
at the dedication of the Triang
le's
Gay Braxton Apartments,
Madison's first public housing
since veterans housing in 1949.
That's Rollie under the arrow ne
xt
to mayor Otto Festge.
The good news is that all those
tenants
were from the old Greenbush Addi
tion.
The bad news is that their hous
es had been torn down
in 1962 and '63, and the grand op
ening was June 1965.
The University of Wisconsin was
the fourth great issue
throughout the decade, because
it is the critical component
that makes Madison Madison.
And not just when protests spill
out into the streets.
Economically, intellectually, em
otionally,
socially, culturally, the univer
sity is central
to our identity.
And in the 60s, the university
had a profound impact
on downtown planning and developm
ent.
Thanks to massive amounts of fed
eral funds
and a president in Fred Harve
y Harrington,
who proudly proclaimed himself
the biggest imperialist
since Teddy Roosevelt, the un
iversity
turned this into this.
And created such a backlash that
it was the cause
of the referendum to end urban r
enewal
and abolish the Redevelopment Au
thority,
not the Triangle.
The Triangle residents had very l
ittle political
and economic capital.
They couldn't fight back.
But the property owners around
the southeast dorm expansion ar
ea had political capital,
and they could fight back, and th
ey are the ones
who almost ended urban renewal.
So what's really important about
university expansionism
is that that's what caused the de
cade's first rift
between town and gown, not st
udent protests.
The 1964 referendum to end urb
an renewal
and abolish the redevelopment au
thority was 18 months
before any student protests gene
rated appreciable backlash.
Harrington and the regents are to
blame
for the decade's first commun
ity hostility
toward the campus, not the stud
ents.
It was the adults, not the kids.
Of course, radicals and revoluti
onaries
did cause serious problems
for the university and themselves
.
Most especially on October 27th,
1966
at the Stock Pavilion, when Sena
tor Edward Kennedy headlines
a campaign appearance for Go
vernor Pat Lucey.
And a dozen or so leaders
from the Committee to End th
e War in Vietnam
heckle him so aggressively that K
ennedy gives up
and leaves the stage.
8,000 students sign a letter of
apology
for what a handful have done,
but there's more than just
symbolic public relations backla
sh.
There is a substantive reaction b
y the university
with profound implications.
Because it was the heckling of Se
nator Kennedy
that caused the faculty to a
dopt the rule
against obstructing universi
ty activities.
They actually called it the Kenne
dy rule.
This was the rule protesters know
ingly violated
when they blocked the hallways
of the Commerce Building
in October 1967 to block the Dow
Chemical Company
from conducting job interviews
because they made napalm
for use in Vietnam.
It was to remove the students fro
m the building
to enforce the Kennedy rule
that Chancellor William Sewell c
alled
in the Madison Police Department.
As you may have heard, that also
did not go well.
The Battle of Dow radicalized th
ousands of students
and made the community curious
about the anti-war movement,
and it made a star out of Paul So
glin,
who you see under the red arrow
about to be beaten.
Madison police officers whale
on the obstructors
for 13 minutes, sending 52 to th
e emergency room,
most of them with scalp lacerati
ons that bleed profusely
but are not really serious inju
ries.
But then on the plaza outside, a
different dynamic.
It's class break and suddenly a c
rowd
of several thousand, and many a
re fighting back,
some with rocks and bottles.
The police are under siege,
several officers are severely inj
ured.
Emery finally calls for tear gas
,
its first use anywhere to quell
an on-campus protest.
This is the moment when Poli
ce Chief Emery vows
he will never be outnumbered agai
n,
that he will respond at all futu
re demonstrations
with overwhelming force,
even before such force is necessa
ry.
This is the birth of the policy p
ut into place
on Mifflin Street on May 3rd, 19
69.
The cops help spur a riot on
Mifflin Street
because they showed up in riot g
ear.
They were in riot gear becaus
e they had bricks
and rocks thrown at them at Dow.
They were at Dow to enforce
the Kennedy rule against obstruct
ion.
An event in 1966 creates the cond
itions for an event in 1967
that helps produce an event in
1969.
The spirit moves through time an
d leaves us with history.
And finally, bringing it all ful
l circle,
the 60s ends with the deaths of t
wo stellar citizens
who fought each other for years
over Frank Lloyd Wright
and Monona Terrace.
Joseph W. "Bud" Jackson, 90, inde
fatigable advocate
for Madison improvements and impl
acable foe
of Frank Lloyd Wright and Monona
Terrace.
Colonel Jackson organized the ar
my's
last mounted cavalry unit under
General Jack Black Pershing
in World War I.
Was later business manager for th
e medical clinic
founded by his father, a Civi
l War surgeon.
He left the Jackson Clinic in 19
37
to found and lead the Madison an
d Wisconsin Foundation,
the forerunner to our chamber of
commerce.
He raised private funds for the
University Arboretum,
the Madison School Forest, and 18
city parks,
helped get public funds for
the airport,
VA hospital, and City County Buil
ding,
and helped kill Monona Terrace.
An economics professor emeritus H
arold Groves, 72,
a founder of the modern coop
erative movement,
the intellectual and political fa
ther
of Wisconsin's first in the natio
n
Unemployment Compensation Act,
and an important supporter of Fra
nk Lloyd Wright.
One of six children of a Lod
i farm couple,
Groves earned three degrees at W
isconsin.
Took his doctorate in 1927
under the legendary John R. Comm
ons,
whose endowed chair he would l
ater hold,
served in the Assembly and Se
nate in the 30s.
He was the chief faculty sponsor
and patron
of the interracial, interreligio
us
women's cooperative Groves House
.
He and his wife Helen were friend
s of Frank Lloyd Wright
since the 30s and leaders of Citi
zens for Monona Terrace.
Groves served six year on the au
ditorium committee
until he was replaced by May
or Henry Reynolds
after that momentous election of
1961.
May their memories be for a bless
ing.
That concludes my talk,
thank you very much for your
kind attention.
[audience applauding]