Post on 23-Apr-2023
People’s Park- Berkeley, California 1969United Press International, 1969.
Berkeley, California in the 1960s was the center of
America’s anti-war movement and across the bay from San
Francisco, where the counter culture of the Haight Ashbury
ushered the United States into perhaps its most turbulent
domestic era since the Civil War. As a young boy, I grew up in
Pittsburg, California, about thirty miles east of Berkeley. My
parents Frank and Kathy Belleci were involved in the anti-war
movement along with my aunt and uncle, Angela and Sal Tedesco.
2
The family made weekend trips to Berkeley because my father was a
high school political science and history teacher and he sought
to broaden his horizons by as my mother put it, “getting his
hands on as much information and differing viewpoints as he
could.”1 My mom and dad took me along on almost every trip to
Berkeley, including demonstrations at People’s Park and the huge
anti-war march in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in 1969. I
have been exposed to a variety of people and experiences and have
an open mind on a multitude of issues. I have to attribute that
to the way I was raised by my parents and what I was exposed to
in Berkeley.
I wanted to know more, about not only this time in American
History, but also more about my family’s history. I decided to
interview my mother, Kathy Belleci, and my aunt Angela Tedesco. I
felt they could offer valuable insight into what really happened
in Berkeley in the 1960s. As I interviewed each of them, I
started to reminisce about my father, Frank Belleci. He passed
away in 1979, when I was only sixteen years old and would have
been an amazing interview for this project. My mother and aunt
1 Kathy Belleci, Interview by author, Laguna Niguel, CA, October 28, 2010.
3
made continual references to my father and I really wanted to add
his voice into this discussion. I began to search the many boxes
of family artifacts around my home and lo and behold—I hit the
jackpot! I stumbled across my dad’s journals and they contained a
long summary of his thoughts, actions, and hopes from the 1960s.
He wrote about a variety of topics that my mother and aunt
also discussed in our interviews. The topics included growing up
in a Sicilian-American home, the anti-war movement, hippies and
counter culture, the free speech movement, the draft, the Black
Panthers, union organizing and more. An interesting side note is
my father’s observation on public education and teachers in the
1960s eerily parallels the same issues discussed today. As a
state executive board member of the student branch of the
California Teachers Association (CTA) and student member of the
National Education Association’s Advisory Committee on
Membership, I see the same issues are still prominent in
America’s public education system. My dad stated in his journal
in 1966, “Student’s in America’s public education system have
little or no say in the direction of their own education and are
4
being forced to conform to a set of standards that does little to
teach actual knowledge. If Socrates, Jesus Christ, or Buddha were
teachers in this system, I doubt they would be successful because
administrations are forcing teachers to be classic conformists.”2
This observation is just as true today as it was in the 1960s!
The students at the University of California, Berkeley
started a Free Speech Movement in 1964. While Berkeley is more
famous for the demonstrations and hippies, this movement in 1964
started the protest ball rolling. On September 14, 1964, Dean of
Students Katherine Towle, at the insistence of Vice-Chancellor
Alex Sherriffs, wrote a letter to the student political groups
telling them that they could no longer use the plaza at Bancroft
and Telegraph to solicit support for "off campus political and
social action."3 When the students appealed to the dean to
reverse the action they found out that she did not have the
authority to do so. They organized and several students led a
rally, without permission, as the “old rules” required, against
the new policies and set up a tabling operation in front of the 2 Frank Belleci, personal journal, “in author’s possession,” December 10,1966. 3 Immanuel Ness, ed., Encyclopedia of American Social Movements (NY: M.E. Sharpe,2004), 1178-82.
5
administration building facing Sproul Plaza. These students
hailed from eighteen different student groups. Five of these
students were ordered into the dean’s office and shortly
thereafter over 400 students flooded the hallways of the
administration building demanding to be disciplined as well.4 One
of these student leaders was Mario Savio, Student Body President
of UC Berkeley.
My aunt Angela Tedesco stated, “I remember going to
Berkeley and listening to Mario Savio speak, I really admired him
and what he was doing with the Free Speech Movement.”5 She also
attributed the ideology of the Free Speech Movement and the stand
the students took against the administration as “planting the
seed” for the anti-war movement. My father wrote in his journals
that the administration of UC Berkeley is mediocre as best and
their insistence on silencing the voice of the students is an
institutional based policy designed to mask the façade of their
competence.6 I believe my father supported the students and their
protest movement. He did not believe in censorship of any kind 4 Berkeley in the Sixties, Directed by Mark Kitchell, 1990.5 Angela Tedesco, Interview by author, Berkeley, California, November 15,2010.6 Frank Belleci, personal journal, Fall 1964.
6
and that is what was so appealing to him and the others about the
Berkeley in the 1960s.
Perhaps the most volatile topic of the 1960s, not only in
Berkeley but also across America was the Vietnam War and the
draft. The majority of people drafted were from lower socio-
economic neighborhoods and mostly Black, Brown, or poor White. I
vividly remember going to Berkeley with my family and seeing the
anger of the people against the war. I also remember watching the
evening news and the anchor, so matter of factly, reporting
casualty and death totals as if he were reading off the scores of
Major League Baseball games. My Uncle Sal Tedesco received a poor
draft number. My father already felt the entire draft was unfair
and commented, “A society is free only to the extent that its
least privileged and least talented members are free.”7
Pittsburg, California was blue-collar town with a diverse
demographic, imagine a scaled down version of Long Beach or
Oakland, California and Pittsburg would be the result. Just like
in other parts of the country, the wealthy avoided the draft,
while the working class boarded buses for boot camp at the
7 Ibid., December 1966.
7
Oakland Induction Center.8 My Uncle Sal was not from a wealthy
family; my family was also working class. We were the target
group of the draft. In fact, if I was not born, it was possible
that my father would have faced the same dilemma as my uncle.
My uncle was not even a U.S. citizen and the family decided
it would be best of he avoided the draft, but fleeing to Canada
was not an option. He was born in French Algiers and was a French
citizen. My aunt articulated,
At the time we did not believe in the war, we didn’t feel, for one thing, that the way they went about picking was fair. They reinstated the draft and they did a lottery. YourUncle Sal didn’t get a very good number, the cut-off was 140something, and he was 120 something. And the reason we decided that was because, he wasn’t a citizen and we didn’t believe in the war. A lot of people went to Canada, because they didn’t want to fight in the war. So anyway, when he gotthat number, he was getting a deferment, they cut out the deferment, and if your number was like his you had to go. Wetalked it over and France had only a year’s service. We werealso worried that because he was French and spoke French he would be put in some of the most dangerous situations because of the history between France and Vietnam. It’s not like we were unpatriotic, we just made a conscientious decision for him to join the French Army for a year. It was just best for our family.9
8 Berkeley in the Sixties. 9 Tedesco interview.
8
Even though fleeing to Canada was a popular way of avoiding
conscription, I do not think many people had the same option as
my uncle. I think this situation was unique to him and maybe only
a handful of others. My father’s commentary about a society only
being as free as it’s least privileged and talented seems to
encapsulate the prevailing theme of the populace concerning the
draft.
Perhaps the 1960s and Berkeley is best known as time of
movements, organizing, and activism. Everybody seemed to
organizing or protesting about one cause or another. The Civil
Rights Act was passed in 1964. The Women’s Movement of feminism
and bra burning found support. Perhaps, each of these movements
fed off and enhanced each other. Students, Blacks, and Native
Americans all organized during this time. According to the
documentary film Berkeley in the Sixties, an alliance grew between the
student movement in Berkeley and the Black Panthers based out of
Oakland. Bobby Seale discussed how the Black Panthers raised
money for guns by selling Chairman Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book.10 I
too remember that book. My father had a copy of it. No, he had
10 Berkeley in the Sixties.
9
multiple copies of it. He told me the Panthers would buy them in
Chinatown in San Francisco for twenty cents apiece and sell them
on the Berkeley campus for a dollar. Bobby Seale reiterated the
story my father told me as a kid in the documentary.
Perhaps this gave my father the inspiration to start writing
his essay, “How to Run a Successful Revolution.” I do not know if
it was the writings of Mao or the militancy of the Black Panthers
but I have no doubt that both contributed to his work. I also
believe that besides his long hair and leftist political views,
that his activism in Berkeley and the AFT compelled others in
Pittsburg to call him a Communist. My mother commented that women
in the beauty shop would make statements to my grandmother, Rose
Aliotti, such as, “What in the hell is wrong with your son-in-
law, is he a Communist? If he doesn’t like it here, he should
just leave the country.”11 It appears as many of these types of
comments were based on what was referred to as “The Generation
Gap.” My father commented, “The recent upheaval at the Berkeley
campus again reveals significant values, attributes, and beliefs
held by today’s youth that sharply conflicts with the prevailing
11 Belleci interview.
10
understanding of the older generation.”12 I would have to connect
this split in ideology between the old and new as a symptom of
post World War II differences in political beliefs.
The “Greatest Generation” did not feel the same sense of
betrayal by their government as their children did. I would argue
that the prevailing attitude of mistrust by the American People
came after the Tet Offensive. I believe that until that time the
public never felt they had been lied to by a sitting President.
President Lyndon Johnson changed the culture of American when he
completely distorted the truth about what was really happening on
the ground in Vietnam. This fostered the new ideology of the
American public, particularly the young, to no longer take what
the government and the President told them as gospel. The era of
questioning began! The resulting movements changed the course of
American History.
“Most of our contemporary institutions, values, and
ideologies were fashioned in an earlier era.”13The new generation
and counter culture movement began to challenge these
institutions. This was also true in the field of education. My 12 Belleci, personal journals, December 11, 1966. 13 Ibid.
11
family, led of course by my father, was instrumental in starting
the AFT chapter in Pittsburg. It began in my living room with my
father and four other teachers at Hillview Junior High School,
Bill Gray, Tony Gallo, Mary Bergen, and Bob Novo. I was only
elementary school but I will never forget those teachers. The AFT
was a challenge to the status quo. CTA was an association and did
not really engage in the same type of union activities as it does
today. Initially, I thought that possibly it would be
disappointing to my father, that I am so heavily involved in the
student arm of CTA. However, AFT does not have a student program
and CTA has now become a union, rather than an association. With
that said, this new breed of teachers in Pittsburg, inspired by
the groundswell of activism with Berkeley as the hearth, started
to rock the boat.
My father stated, “The Berkeley upheaval of December 1966,
underlines the fact once again, that our generation says No!! No,
to contemporary institutions and values…We seek to create new
values and build new institutions that will be fundamentally
satisfying to humans.”14 This new ideology of the new teachers
14 Belleci, personal journals, December 10, 1966.
12
was rooted in the counter culture movement that grew in the Bay
Area. It started with small steps, such as refusing to wear ties
and letting their hair grow longer. It challenged the status quo
and power of the public education system, administrators, and
school boards just as Mario Salvo and the student groups such as
SLATE at UC Berkeley started in 1964.15 CTA was the old and AFT
was the new, at least as far as this group of teachers were
concerned at this time.
My mother was concerned that my father’s union activities
and political rhetoric would have consequences. She felt those
consequences would be taken out on me at school by CTA teachers.
She stated, “When the PEA (Pittsburg Education Association, part
of CTA) went out on strike, the meetings went twenty four hours a
day until it got settled. I remember feeling the teachers were
going to take it out on you, because of your father, because many
of those members were CTA and not AFT. And, I remember me telling
them exactly what I thought and that they better not do anything,
or there would be consequences.”16 Perhaps she was justified; my
15 Jo Freeman, At Berkeley in the ‘60s (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,2004), 14-17.16 Belleci interview.
13
father published a newsletter for the AFT named The Green Banana
that was highly critical of the CTA. I hope to track down some of
these old newsletters but only one of the original five members
is still alive. Additionally, before the strike, he did not hide
his feelings about CTA; he summed up his reasoning for the
decision as follows:
I am on the verge of resigning from the CTA and joining the American Federation of Teachers for the following reasons:
1. The AFT’s attitude toward administration correspondswith my own.
2. The caliber of men seems to be much higher than in CTA.
3. The AFT’s commitment to social issues is admirable and necessary.17
Both my mother and my aunt also worked in the school district. My
aunt was a secretary at Village Elementary School and my mother
an instructional aide at my old school, Highlands Elementary.
They both participated and aided my father with his union
activism by either typing and distributing The Green Banana or
other clerical and footwork. To summarize the feelings of my
father and the AFT during the mid to late 1960s, he stated,
17 Belleci, personal journal, December 15, 1966.
14
The authoritarian structure of the schools is frankly admitted, but those who hold this notion are lagging to realize the implications of this system… I dissent and refuse to be coerced into accepting the status quo. I will smash this system, if necessary, to accomplish this goal of democratic schools!18
This attitude and vigor in challenging the Pittsburg Schools and
the American institution of public education, can no doubt be
traced to my father’s and the AFT’s connection with Berkeley and
the ant-war movement.
Protests and demonstrations were also a part of Berkeley in
the 1960s. I remember going to quite a few of them. We attended
the big Peace Rally and March in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park
in 1969. There were trips to the Cow Palace and to Sacramento,
where the AFT held demonstrations against the war. I asked my
mother and aunt if they were hippies and they both said the same
thing, “Not really.” They called themselves “fringe hippies,”
never quite fully immersing themselves into the counter culture
revolution. They all vehemently deny ever using marijuana or
psychedelics, which in my eyes would keep them from truly being
hippies. I asked my mother about my father and drugs, she stated,
18 Ibid., December, 20, 1966.
15
“He refused to ever try drugs because he said he always wanted
his mind to be clear.”19 My aunt told me a story about the four
of them attending a concert. She thought it might have been
Cheech & Chong, and when the house lights dimmed, everybody “lit
up joints and passed them up and down the aisles.” She said years
later that my uncle told her he “took a puff.” That was the
extent of any drug use by my family in the 1960s. I am a bit
surprised considering the amount of time we spent in Berkeley!
Another interesting aspect from my interviews with my mother
and aunt concerned race relations. Despite the family’s old
fashion Sicilian values, we have been fairly progressive in
regards to interracial relationships. My aunt spoke of “getting
in trouble” with her father, Nick Aliotti, because she danced a
“fast song” with a Black male student at a school dance. She
said, “My cousin Carol Lee told my Uncle Phil and he told my
mother and she told my dad.”20 I remember years later my
grandfather really giving me a hard time about dating a Black
girl in high school. However, the family has really changed and
19 Belleci interview. 20 Tedesco interview.
16
embraced all ethnicities and lifestyles. My aunt attributes this
turn of events back to the 1960s and Berkeley.
She reflected on that time as being the start of tolerance
and open-mindedness. I would have to agree especially in regards
to our family. We have basically become a scaled down version of
the Rainbow Coalition. In our interview, she articulated, “It
started in the 60s, by us taking you to Berkeley. You saw so many
things that you did not see in Pittsburg and I think it had a
profound effect on how you viewed the world. I mean you were the
first one in the family to openly date outside of our race.”21 My
mother agreed in my aunt’s assessment with my outlook on life, “I
think (taking me with them during the 1960s), it was a good
thing, you got a wider horizon, you got to go to Berkeley. You
got to see a lot of different kinds of people; you just saw a lot
of different aspects.”22 I would agree with my mother and aunt
that spending so much time as a young boy in Berkeley definitely
helped shape my worldview. I have always embraced diversity and
currently I am on the Student CTA Social Justice Committee
working on expanding the parameters of minority representation to21 Ibid. 22 Belleci interview.
17
be more inclusive and less exclusionary. I truly believe that
this aspect of my personality is firmly rooted in me because of
the time I spent on Telegraph Avenue and the UC Berkeley campus
with my family.
How do these interviews and my father’s journals fit into
the history of Berkeley in the 1960s? I believe that my family’s
time in Berkeley greatly contributed to our outlook on life and
the world in general. We are open-minded, tolerant, embracing of
diversity, and non-judgmental. This stems from the counter
culture of Berkeley in the 1960s.
When I asked both my mother and aunt if they considered
themselves activists that both balked at that label. They did
conclude that my father was an activist and they just followed
him. Reading his journals and interviewing my family members has
been an emotional experience for me. Actually, reading my dad’s
words years after he passes has elicited emotions in me that I
have long since thought that I buried. It has also given me a
purpose and a mission. He never got to attend Grad School because
he had to support my mother and I. Since I have now been accepted
into the Masters Program here at California State University,
18
Fullerton, I feel I will be obtaining that degree for the two of
us.
I have a new found respect for activism and grassroots
political movements and will dedicate some of my energy to
pursing causes I feel are necessary. My aunt stated, “What is
wrong with college students in America today? I don’t think they
have the same passion and drive that we had in the 60s. In Europe
they are taking to the streets over tuition hikes and the kids
here are just taking it lying down.”23 I agree with her
assertion. Between the new Early Start Remediation Program being
implemented by the California State University System and yet
another fee increase for the spring semester, I am ready to take
to the streets. These interviews and readings have taught me that
others have fought for what we have and we owe it to our children
to do the same! The total lack of apathy by this generation of
college students in regards to their own education is quite
appalling. What will it take to light a fire under the asses of
these students? How far will they let the state board of regents
kick them around until they react? Have they been coddled to the
23 Tedesco interview.
19
put of complete blindness to the world around them? My aunt would
say so, and y reading my father’s journals, I know he would
agree. Therefore, I believe that I owe it to them to either start
or become involved in a student movement that challenges the
status quo. Why should I pay more for my education as course
offerings and student services decline? Where is the Mario Savio
of this generation?
In conclusion, I learned a lot about Berkeley and the 1960s,
but more importantly, I learned more about my family and myself.
These interviews gave me an insight into my childhood and with
the aid of my father’s journals gave me an insight into myself.
My views on political activism and grassroots politics underwent
a metamorphosis. I respect political activists and grassroots
movements. I will become involved and active in making the public
education system of this nation better for my grandchildren. I
will take on this task in tribute to my father and as a result of
his writings and the interviews with my mother and aunt.
20
Sources
Belleci, Frank P., Personal Journals. “In Authors Possession.”
Belleci, Katherine. Interview by Author. Laguna Niguel, California. October 28, 2010.
Berkeley in the Sixties. Directed by Mark Kitchell, 1990.
Cohen, Robert and Reginald E. Zelnik. The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s. Berkeley, CA.: University of California Press, 2002.
DeBenedetti, Charles. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY.: Syracuse University Press, 1990.
Dudley, William. The 1960s: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego, CA.: Greenhaven Press, 1997.
Echols, Alice. Shaky Ground: The ‘60s and its Aftershocks. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
Field, Robert Meyer. The Nixon Vietnam War and the Decay at Home. New York: Carlton Press, 1973.
Freeman, Jo. At Berkeley in the ‘60s. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2004.
Heineman, Kenneth J.. Put Your Bodies Upon Wheels: Student Revolt in the 1960s. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher, 2001.
Heirich, Max. The Beginning: Berkeley 1964. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968.
Miles, Barry. Hippie. London: Essential Works, 2003.
Miller, Timothy. The 60s Communes: Hippies and Beyond. Syracuse, NY.: Syracuse University Press,1999.
21
Powers, Thomas. The War at Home: Vietnam and the American People, 1964-1698. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1973.
Rielly, Edward J.. The 1960s. Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press, 2003.
Robbins, Mary Susannah. Against the Vietnam War: Writings by Activists. Syracuse, NY.: Syracuse University Press, 1999.
Rorabaugh, W. J.. Berkeley at War: The 1960s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Taylor, Clyde. Vietnam and Black America: An Anthology of Protest and Resistance. Garden City, NY.: Anchor Books, 1973.
Tedesco, Angela. Interview by Author. Berkeley, California. November 15, 2010.
Time-Life Books. Our American Century: Turbulent Years: The 60s. Richmond, VA.: Time-Life Books, 1983.
Unger, Irwin and Debi Unger. The Times Were a Changin’: The Sixties Reader. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1998.
Wells, Tom. The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam. Berkeley, CA.: University of California Press,1994.
Wolfe, Tom. The Electric Kool-Aid Test. New York: Bantam Books, 1968.
22