Explanatory commentary by Judi Bari, copied from 1990: A Year in the Life of Earth First! published in the Anderson Valley Advertiser, January 2, 1991, reprinted in Reprinted in Timber Wars, © 1994 Common Courage Press (recopied according to "Fair Use" guidelines)
After the Fort Bragg rally, the Press Democrat ran an article declaring Redwood Summer over, then proceeded to stop covering it as much as they could get away with. But the protests continued, moving mainly to Humboldt County.
Demonstrators locked themselves to logging equipment with Kiyptonite locks in several places. At one protest Pacific Lumber falsely tried to blame us for interfering with firefighting efforts. At the Carlotta log deck 17 people were arrested in a lockdown, and four had their heads shaved in jail by brutal Mississippi-style law enforcement. Five demonstrators outside the jail shaved their own heads in protest, and one was arrested for illegally communicating with prisoners by holding up a sign that said “We Love You.”
The Lorax Affinity Group, who had been arrested in June at the Samoa protest, took their case to jury trial and argued that they were blocking trucks to prevent greater crimes by L-P. Legal history was made when they got a hung jury, 7-5 for acquittal.
The most outrageous woods action of the summer took place in Murrelet Grove near Headwaters, where 50 people marched into the active logging site and blocked operations with their bodies. Loggers chased them with bulldozers, and they stood their ground. One protester had his legs run over by a logger’s truck. He miraculously escaped serious injury, but when other protesters came to his aid, a grappling match broke out between loggers and protesters. People surrounded an old-growth tree as a logger tried to cut it, and one man place his hand right under the chainsaw, so it could not be turned back on without hurting him.
After Murrelet, 70 protesters assembled outside a timber executives’ meeting with HSU professors in Korbel, so they could focus the demo on the execs instead of the loggers. When Pacific Lumber President John Campbell came out, people surrounded his car and tried to place him under citizens arrest. Campbell rammed the picket line and took off, careening down the road, with protester Bob Serena clinging to his car hood. When he stopped a half-mile later, Serena was arrested and Campbell went free. For the next three days, 20 protesters held a 24-hour vigil at Campbell’s house. They tried to place him under citizens’ arrest for being a Maxxam hood, but the police would not cooperate. Serena is still in jail, serving four months.
Just when it looked like things couldn’t get much more outrageous, US Army troops and helicopters, fresh from their “victory” in Panama, landed in the Mattole area of Humboldt County for Operation Greensweep. Their purpose was supposedly to rid the area of the scourge of marijuana on public lands. They flew helicopters low over people’s homes and tromped around people’s land with assault weapons, scaring and pissing off local residents. Redwood Summer responded by holding Hemp Liberation Day right in front of the place where the troops were stationed. Two hundred and fifty hippies showed up with music and speakers advocating using hemp instead of trees for paper and fiber. They threw marijuana seeds over the line at the soldiers, smoked big hooters right in front of them, and finally ended with a classic drum circle. The troops were withdrawn a few days later because they were “needed in Iraq.”
Meanwhile, back in Mendo County, the citizens of Elk took it upon themselves to organize a Redwood Summer-style protest over L-P’s cutting near their water sup- ply. Calling themselves “Breakfast First!,” they had gourmet chefs serve a champagne breakfast in the middle of a logging road. One arrestee was a longtime logger, and supervisor Norman deVail stood in front of logging equipment as L-P goons ordered it to move on the protesters.
Brave demonstrators in the devastated Sherwood area in Mendo Co. also staged a bicycle ride blockade that ended in wild chase through Willits of a log truck that stole their banner. Several protests were also held at the Maxxam building in Marin, including a Peace Navy Sea Blockade and an arrest action by Central America activists drawing connections between environmental devastation in the redwoods and in Central America. In another outstanding August action the Squirrel Affinity Group closed down Highway 101 for five hours with a single tree climber suspended over the road with a banner saying, “Save Headwaters.” Also in August I made my first and only public appearance, still in a wheelchair, at a women’s rally at the FBI building in San Francisco. Two hundred women, including United Farmworkers’ Dolores Huerta, sang “Burning Times” at that bastion of male power. The finale of Redwood Summer was supposed to be a mass action at Maxxam.
For whatever reasons (it would take another article to discuss it), organizing for this action was taken out of the area and planning was done in the Bay Area, mostly out of control of the locals. The result was what looked like a recipe for disaster—a two-day concert called Redwoodstock held in a hostile area after a court order was obtained to allow the assembly, followed by a march through the legendary Stomper town of Fortuna. In spite of this set-up, the Redwood Summer demonstrators again proved their commitment to non-violent protest. Seven hundred of them marched through Fortuna through a hail of jeers, eggs and bottles. At the end of the march the police seemed unable to hold back the attacking vigilantes. But just as they broke through, the marchers sat down and started singing “We Shall Overcome,” once again preventing violence by using nonviolence.
This is by no means a complete list of Redwood Summer demos. At least 3,000 people participated, as opposed to about 150 who joined redwood protests the year before. Arrest total was over 250.
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