s the Vietnam War raged, angry students and police clashed on college campuses around the country. Eighteen-year-olds got the vote—and used it. Population expanded and towns grew. Small town Chico and sleepy Chico State College were not isolated from social change and protests. Between 1965 and 1975, the campus and community churned with many of the controversies of the time: Vietnam, student self-determination, town growth, and social services.

by Barbara Alderson

Resistance and Mobilization

“I was naive; I was stupid. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was inexperienced, but I was right.” —Tom Reed

For most people in Chico in the early ’60s, the world was pretty good. As for the war, it was the duty of every American to support our leaders in Washington who had to make the decisions that would protect our land and our rights. The behavior of students baffled many Chicoans.

“Many students who opposed the Vietnam War felt they had no other choice. Tom Reed, a philosophy major at the time, says opposing the war was a “moral compulsion.” Kate McCracken, then a nursing student, agrees, adding, “We had this profound sense of hope. We really believed that the world could be a fabulous place if we just worked hard enough.”

That work included urging young men to oppose the draft, setting up anti-war teach-ins, and organizing rallies and marches. It was at one such rally that history student Dan Trevithick turned in his draft card. In 1965, he had been a war “hawk” and expected to enlist. Then he received letters from two friends serving in Vietnam. One wrote, “These people hate us and don’t want us in their country. If there’s anything you can do, don’t go.” Both friends died in the war—and Trevithick changed his stance.

For many young people, this was a time of awakening, of exploration of the power relationships between government and citizen. This exploration coupled with a growing sense of empowerment led to a willingness to confront authority.

Campus police meet demonstrators during 1975 gun strike.

The Chico 15
Between 1965 and 1970, the campus grew from about 5,700 students to more than 10,000 students. New buildings rose to accommodate them. Two buildings—the student union (Bell Memorial Union) and the Performing Arts Center—were built south of First Street, which ran through campus. As both the town and the campus grew, crossing the street became dangerous. Although Chico State’s 1969 master plan called for the closing of First Street, the issue had been raised much earlier. George Wright, a political science student at Chico State in the ’60s, recalls being involved in demonstrations as early as 1964 demanding that First Street be closed.

In 1970 a new word was becoming popular—ecology. The first Earth Day was scheduled for April 22, 1970, on college campuses throughout the nation. Chico State students and faculty organized a Survival Fair for that week.

On April 21, a car was pulled into the street and dismantled as part of “the bicycle vs. the car” activities in Chico. According to the Chico Enterprise-Record, when the police asked that it be removed, no one complied. The event escalated, protestors dragged a speakers’ platform into the street, and students began to rally around the car and the platform. As the crowd grew, hostile remarks flew among the people in the street, the people opposing the demonstration, and the few police officers at the scene. Police reinforcements were called in from surrounding jurisdictions.

Abe Baily, associate dean of Student Affairs at the time, recalls, “There was a total overreaction on the part of law enforcement, in my opinion.” Police set up a staging area and formed columns—150 officers from fifteen North Valley police agencies, according to a Chico Enterprise-Record article at the time. They marched down the street, and the students moved out of the way while they marched. “I did a lot of praying then,” says Baily. “A lot of these reserve officers were the same age [as the demonstrators].” Baily could read the anxiety on the faces of both the officers and the demonstrators. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Gordon Casamajor, Chico’s mayor, was worried about safety and issued an emergency order temporarily closing the street. Student activists and curiosity seekers milled about as a small bonfire lit the night. The city council reopened the street the following day.

Sixteen people were arrested on a felony charge of conspiracy to obstruct traffic. Obstructing traffic is a misdemeanor, but the charge of conspiracy to commit the misdemeanor was a felony punishable by three years in prison and/or up to $5,000 in fines. The one juvenile was referred to the juvenile court. The others became known as the Chico 15: Thomas Hearn, Kevin Campbell, Jack Zeilenga, Frank Burk, Paul Morgan, Kurt Staib, Sandra Jean Rothacker, Carol Kathleen Shetler, Kenneth Popper Jr., Steve Thornton, Michael Allan Rice, Jon Rossiter, Thomas A. Edwards, Daniel Chandler, and Daniel Trevithick.

Trevithick could hardly believe the charge of conspiracy. “There were people there who had never met each other, who didn’t know each other,” he says. “It was just lunacy.”

Two of the three faculty members arrested, mathematics professor Frank Burk and physics professor Jack Zeilenga, had been walking back and forth across First Street as a dramatic protest to show the dangers of the street and to force traffic to slow down. When the driver of a pickup truck refused to stop and almost hit Zeilenga, he, Burk, and a student went down to the police station to file a complaint. Burk remembers how they were asked to wait a few minutes, “so we did, and they came out and said “You’re under arrest.’” Burk felt devastated at being labeled a criminal for exercising his First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly.

Eventually all the charges were dismissed. This pattern, of arrest by local authorities and subsequent dismissal by the court system, was typical of the era and would repeat itself in Chico.

Plant a Seed in April
By 1973, the campus had grown to more than 12,000 students. Eighteen-year-olds could now vote, and college students could vote for elected officials in their college communities. These legal changes came at a time when students in Chico were disgruntled with city council decisions about growth, transportation, and social services. “A lot of people felt that the city was being a little bit repressive,” remembers Dave Murray, who was a business administration student. “We didn’t like the way the country was being run generally, and Chico was one thing that we could do something about.”

A group of about 150 students, faculty, and community members joined together as the April Committee to try to change city politics by electing a slate of candidates in the April 1973 election. Committed to the idea of consensus and participatory democracy, the committee met every week for months to develop a platform. “It was an amazing grassroots movement,” recalls Tom Reed.

Committee members distributed flyers to encourage people to attend meetings, to volunteer time to canvass, to express their opinions on what should be included in the platform. “One of the things I’m most proud of is the platform we developed, which included health care and child care,” says Leslie Mahon-Russo, then a nursing student. “And it happened—the Chico Children’s Center was born out of that, and it still lives, it’s still happening.”

The April Committee platform addressed nine areas of concern: increasing citizen participation; environmental issues; protection of Bidwell Park; low-cost housing availability; planned growth; university-community relations; employment; city finances; and social services such as neighborhood child care, health care, transportation (public and bicycle), and a farmers’ market. “At that time, Chico was truly poised to go one way or the other—either stay this small healthy community or start spreading out,” remembers Sharon Paquin-Gilmore, then a graduate student. “We had a choice at that moment to really plan the growth of this community.”

Kate McCracken (left) and Sue Lawler at a 1969 mobilization for peace march.

Once the platform was developed, the April Committee needed candidates who lived within the city limits. Murray, a student and a conscientious objector doing his alternate service by working at Community Action Volunteers in Education (CAVE), became a candidate. Sharon King, Sue Amundsen, and Pat McLafferty—all students—also became candidates.

People donated materials and time. As the election approached, a man drove up to the office with a van half-filled with daisies. “The people who went around passing out flyers also put a daisy on everybody’s door and in everybody’s hand,” says Paquin-Gilmore, who coordinated the April Committee office. “That was a symbol of the April Committee right before the election.”

On election night, they watched the returns with growing elation. Murray and McLafferty won!

When asked about the legacy of the April Committee and his tenure in office, Murray mentions the bike lanes and the efforts to preserve agricultural land. They wanted to save farmland on the west side of Chico. Murray recalls development in the East 20th Street area as a “pressure relief valve that we were convinced at that time would take the pressure off that farmland.” The April Committee planted the seed that led to a child care center, bike lanes, and environmental awareness and protections.

Administration Building Occupation and Gun Strike
By 1975, more than 13,000 students attended CSU, Chico. As crime on some state college campuses began to rise, the CSU chancellor’s office began discussing arming the campus police. Students at Chico State objected. In June, Chancellor Dumke issued a memo stating that campus police would be armed by October.

Abe Baily urged the Chico State administration not to arm the police over the summer, but when students returned in the fall, campus police were wearing guns. Students calling themselves “Students for Gun Control” talked with administrators and held a series of rallies demanding that the guns be removed from campus. The guns remained, and student frustration with the administration built. On Wednesday, December 4, 1975, a group of thirty to forty students ended a rally by marching to and occupying the administration building. As word of the occupation spread, more students and some faculty arrived, until the building was crammed with hundreds of demonstrators—the campus newspaper, The Wildcat, reported “over 400 angry students and faculty members.”

Baily remembers the many administration discussions of that first night. Some people wanted to call in the police immediately and clear the building, while others urged patience. The police were called but did not arrest anyone. Baily spent the night in the building, “to make sure that nothing crazy happened.” He went home for some rest, and when he returned on the second day, protestors still occupied the building.

“After that, it was really a war of attrition,” recalls Baily. Kevin Jeys, a philosophy student at the time, recalls much the same thing. “We agreed that people wouldn’t be inside the administration offices; we’d just occupy the hall.” George Wright, by then a political science professor, and other faculty who joined the occupation encouraged students to allow people access to their offices. He remembers the administrators “were willing to use force, but they were willing to negotiate as well if a certain reasonableness could be maintained.”

As time went on, the protesters realized they were losing physical ground. More of their time was taken up with negotiating where they could sit and less time negotiating for the removal of guns. On February 3, 1976, the administration told protestors they would call the police to clear the building. They did so, and about thirty people were arrested, ending ten weeks of continuous occupation. Campus police remain armed today.

A Time of Hope
Controversy, action, and political awakening. But most of all, the turbulent decade of 1965 to 1975 created great hope and excitement for those who participated in the political events of the time. Burk remembers it as a time when students questioned everything. Wright says, “We’re lucky to be of that generation.” Paquin-Gilmore says, “We made a difference.” Reed sums up the attitude of many activists of the decade when he says, “I was naive; I was stupid. I was inexperienced, but I was right.”

Tell Us Your Stories
Have any stories about your “radical” past you’d like to share with us? Please send them to Publications, California State University, Chico, Chico, CA 95929-0040; or e-mail publications@csuchico.edu.

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