By Judy Nichols and Gayle Caldwell – North Coast News, August 2, 1990
For several hours on July 21, 1990, Fort Bragg came to a standstill, as timber industry supporters and Redwood Summer protesters staged head-to-head rallies.
It was the largest protest of Redwood Summer, organized by Earth First! and other environmental groups to protest overcutting of the North Coast’s forest and call for the protection of remaining old-growth redwoods.
The Community Solidarity Coalition responded to the gathering of international media to kick off its campaign to defeat the Forests Forever initiative on the November ballot, which calls for widespread changes in forestry regulations.
The day began with a Community Solidarity Coalition parade down Harold Street, a sea of yellow ribbons, T-shirts and balloons, heading toward Green Memorial Field where they listened to speakers, including Congressman Doug Bosco.
At the same time, at property owned by Georgia-Pacific at the north end of town, Redwood Summer protesters scrambled over log obstructions put up the day before by GP, singing, dancing and listening to speakers before heading down Main Street to G-P’s corporate headquarters.
At the comer of Main and Redwood streets, the Redwood Summer protesters were taunted by angry people, many wearing Solidarity T-shirts and carrying “Support our timber industry” signs.
Two police lines were formed, creating a no-man’s land between the two groups, while the Redwood Summer marchers listened to more speakers, even inviting Solidarity supporters to take the microphone.
As the marchers proceeded, a big portion of the world got a glimpse. More than 150 press passes were issued, and those gathered came from across California and the United States and from as far away as London and Italy.
Because of the tense situation, the Earth First! organizers who planned the march called off planned acts of civil disobedience, and the marchers returned back down Main Street
According to estimates, between 1,200 and 1,500 people attended each gathering. The contingent of more than 400 law enforcement and support personnel was believed to be the largest ever assembled in the county. There were five arrests.
Following are some of the sights and sounds of the day:
“Second growth”
—sign on a truck in the Solidarity parade in which second-generation timber workers were riding.
* * * * *
“This parade is fine, but we all need to sit down and get solutions.”
—Rob Prosolino, independent logging operator from Manchester.
Bruce Anderson, editor of the Anderson Valley Advertiser and emcee for the Redwood Summer rally. listing different names environmentalists have been called: “Eco-terrorists, Jobless gypsies, Bunny buggers, Pot smokers, Nature’ Nazis, Eco-facists, Commies, Rent-a-mob, Forest faggots, Anarchists, Beatnicks, Tree buggers, and Liberals.”
We led cheers 20 years ago on this field Families first! Save our jobs… Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate … millworkers!”
—Maribelle Anderson and another ex-cheerleader.
* * * * *
“I’m an Albion resident concerned about protecting the old-growth. It’s sad to see this polarity in the community, but there will be no jobs without the trees.”
—Harriet Bye at the Redwood (Summer) rally
* * * * *
“I am a decent, hard-working human being. I will not act undignified. I will not lower myself to argue with misinformed people no matter how hard they try to provoke me … no matter how great the urge to speak to them. I will not give them the satisfaction for I am here to tell the truth. So help me God.”
—Community Solidarity nonviolence pledge delivered by Maribelle Anderson at the rally.
* * * * *
“Respect the aged; Hands old old-growth”
—sign carried by gray-haired woman
* * * * *
“I’m a logger man, here is where I belong,
I live here now. but I may not live here long,.
Voters in LA, please don’t let us down,
Prop 130, vote that sucker down.”
—Sung at the Solidarity rally to the tune of “It Takes a Worried Man”.
* * * * *
“For the last six years, I’ve lived with a man who questions the very fundamentals of his existence.”
—Karen Smith, wife of Walter Smith, who recently sold his partnership in a logging business because he feared financial retaliation after he spoke out against corporate harvesting practices.
* * * * *
“They say they can do what they want with their forests. I say it’s our forest.”
—Walter Smith, at the Redwood (Sumer) rally.[1]
* * * * *
“We are at risk. We are endangered. We have a family-habitat crisis.”
—Linda Bailey, owner of timber-related business at the Coalition rally.[2]
Mendocino County School Board member, David Colfax, said the symbol of Redwood Summer should be the bushel basket:
* * * * *
“For 50 years, they’ve been carrying money out of the county in bushel baskets. At the same time, we don’t have money for schools; we can’t deliver social services, our roads are deteriorating, and your officials are afraid to stand up here and say this to you.
"This is a special bushel basket: it has three handles—one for Doug Bosco, our Congressman; one for Dan Hauser, our so-called representative; and one for the panderer to the worst instincts, a man we thought had a few ethics, Mr. (Barry) Keene…if you don’t have the guts to do what you should be doing, then get the hell out of the way and let the rest of us do it.”
* * * * *
“Earth First! should protest the consumer. In less radical words, Americans should be heavily encouraged to begin conserving wood materials in their homes and businesses…perhaps Earth First!ers can’t appreciate joblessness because a great many of them are on welfare[3]…The next time an Earth First!er tells you they are trying to protect our jobs, you ask them about the spotted owl…Earth First! criticizes our rivers of not being clean while they wash their clothes in the Mattole River…If Earth First! wants to make a park out of our timberlands, let them buy it. They’ve got money for private investigation. They’ve got money for lawyers.
They’ve got $10,000 to bail Darryl Cherney out of jail. They’ve got welfare paying for Judi Bari’s hospital bill.”
—Teri Susan, wife of Louisiana-Pacific forester Lee Susan, at the Solidarity rally.
* * * * *
“When you say, ‘Take back the land,’ I wonder…Our people were mowed down like the trees. The butchery (of the trees) came from people who looked a lot like you.”
—Bobby Castille, for the American Indian Movement, speaking at the Redwood (Summer) Rally.[4]
* * * * *
“We have to start with recognition of whose land this is this land was stolen from the Native people …and built up with the enslavement of African people in this country.
"People always say, ‘Why aren’t there more black people in the environmental movement? How can we get more black people in the environmental movement?
"We’re catching hell in the environment we’re in inside the cities. That’s the environmental movement, we’re in.
“The only solution is revolution. George Herbert Walker Bush is carrying on a legacy handed down by the founding fathers. “The war on drugs is being used to lock up young African Americans…The White House is the rock house; Uncle Sam is the pusher man. If they really wanted to stop drugs, they would’ve locked up Oliver North and George Herbert Walker Bush. I call on you to overthrow U.S. imperialism.”
—Biko Lumumba, of the African Peoples Socialist Party, speaking to the Redwood (Summer) rally.
* * * * *
“I’ve been most active in trying to stop tbe U.S. wars in Central America. . .It’s tbe same attitude tbat can cut down 3,000-year-old plants without thinking or feeling anything about it. Eco-imperialism is the same as human imperialism…We have to live in harmony with the planet, otherwise we’re dead…
The ‘90s are going to make the ‘60s look tame.
—Brian Willson, who lost his legs several years ago at the Concord Naval Weapons Station trying to block a train carrying munitions.
* * * * *
“In a way, we (small timber owners) have done too well, because we’ve carefully developed a fine forest with large trees while at the same time creating homes for endangered species. This Earth First! initiative now tells us we have an ancient forest. I wish I could say we’re thrilled to be so honored, but I really can’t. What they’re telling us is, don’t take too good care of your trees or we may take them away from you. This initiative may well become known as the Forestland Subdivision Act of 1990. Simplistic solutions like this Earth First! initiative will only compound the problems facing us. Burning the house down because termites have been discovered is not the only way to go. “
—Wayne Miller, small forestland owner and chairman of Mendocino County’s Forest Advisory Committee.
* * * * *
Andy Cuevas, speaking in Spanish to the Hispanic workers at the Coalition rally, urged his comrades to register to vote so they could help defeat Proposition 130.
* * * * *
Logger: “I’m proud of what I do for a living. Are we proud?
Crowd at Coalition rally: “Yes!”
Logger: “Are we going to stand by and let a group of radical foreigners and one greedy investor tell us how we can make a living?”
Crowd: “No!”
“So, I think if the real truth is made to be known, we probably wouldn’t have to educate folks. They’d vote no on 130, and we’d all be back where we started a hundred years ago, logging and having good families and good homes and solid security.”
—Craig Blencowe, forester
* * * * *
“The people here. know how to harvest timber and yet survive and keep the environment pure. What we resent is people coming from all over the country and trying to save us, and I say, what are you saving us from?…You’re coming to the most beautiful, pristine part of the whole world, and it’s that way because of the people who live here, not in spite of them.
An Indiana Congressman introduced a bill to save the ancient forests. Well, let me tell you something about Indiana. The entire state of Indiana used to be an ancient forest. The Great Plains were covered with trees, and they were cut down for the farmland.
“After we’ve defeated the initiatives, why don’t we all go to Indiana. We can tell the farmer there, ‘Forget your crops. We’re all going to put the trees back again for you.’”
—Congressman Doug Bosco
* * * * *
Sung to the tune of Hit the Road, Jack:
“Hit the road Doug
And don’t you come back
No more, no more, no more
Hit the road Doug
I’m voting for Comingore”
—Darlene Comingore, the Peace and Freedom candidate running against Bosco.
“The forest isn’t dying; it’s being killed. And the people killing it have names and addresses: Charles Hurwitz, Harry Merlo. And they’re being ably assisted by their Congressman, Doug Bosco.”
—Darlene Comingore
* * * * *
Bosco on the requirement to leave several thousand acres of trees for each pair of spotted owls: “No wonder they’re extinct. They can’t find each other.”
* * * * *
Bosco on Hal Arbit, who contributed almost $1 million to help finance the Forests Forever initiative: “We know he loves redwoods, but does he love them vertical, or does he love them horizontal. “
* * * * *
A man at the Solidarity rally held a sign saying, “Hippies are parasites” on one side and “Russia has no evil corporations” on the other. He said the corporation comment was in response to something Earth First! had said. Asked what he thought of corporations, he said, ‘‘I’m not really for corporations,” but his wife, quickly added, “They pay all our bills.”
* * * * *
“The spotted owl and marbled murrelet don’t even taste good. How come they are more important than human lives and jobs?”
—A sign at the Solidarity rally.
* * * * *
“Sometimes your kids are speaking the truth—remember the Vietnam war. We need to protest in a childish fashion, with song, dance, and humor. It’s time for my generation to stand up; we do have brains.”
—Lisa Henry, college-aged daughter of Mendocino County Supervisor Liz Henry.
* * * * *
“(The corporations say) never underestimate the power of cash. What are we saying here when we march down the street? We’re saying, ‘You’re wrong. You are overestimating the power of cash. There’s something you’ll never understand, something far more powerful than cash, and that is justice.’ “
—Alexander Cockburn, journalist at the Redwood Summer rally.
* * * * *
“The only good tree is a stump.”
—sign held by man on Main Street watching the Redwood march.
* * * * *
“F*** you, hippie.”
“Get out of our town.”
“Get off of welfare.”
“You deserve a bullet in the head.”
“Darryl, where’s Judi?”
—taunts screamed at marchers during the confrontation at Redwood and Main streets.
* * * * *
As the Redwood Summer marchers began singing America the Beautiful. the crowd on the street fell hushed and a number of counter-protesters and bystanders joined in.
Notes:
[1] The North Coast News neglected to quote Gene Lawhorn who also spoke at the Green rally and reiterated his statement about how, during the Roseburg Forest Products strike two years previously, it was those wearing yellow shirts and sporting yellow ribbons on their car antennae who were crossing the union picket lines.
[2] Linda Bailey is the wife of Bill Bailey, the logging equipment retailer who tried to have Dr Seuss’s The Lorax banned by the schools in Laytonville in 1989.
[3] This falsehood has been repeated so many times it’s hard to keep track.
[4] No doubt his comments were directed to the yellow coalition. The North Coast News doesn’t make this clear, however.