By Sequoia - Anderson Valley Advertiser, September 19, 1990
You’ve heard the rumors from folks who weren’t actually there. Do you want to know the actual reality?
Originally, talk of Redwoodstock put the event in the middle of Eureka, using it to block U.S. Highway 101 for two days. Outrageous concept, but not really—to the point in terms of targeting Corporate Timber. Mostly it would just piss off people trying to drive 101 and create a mess for both timber and non-timber people of Eureka to deal with.
Since many of the performers would be coming from the Bay Area and a constant person was needed at a phone to plan something this big, Seeds of Peace House in Berkeley got the planning underway. It was decided to have a 2-day music/speaker event to celebrate the success of Redwood Summer, followed by an action. Months of searching to find a site seemed futile. There was a site in Sonoma County which would have been great for the success of a music event but wouldn’t relate to the target, Pacific Lumber. (Remember, Samoa targeted L-P, Ft. Bragg targeted G-P, Sequoia targeted the National Forest scam, so P-L was next.) A site on the Eel River big enough to park and hold thousands was found near Fernbridge. It is public access land so no land owner would later face angry Yellow Ballers and as the public, we had a right to use that land. Better yet, it was only 4 miles from a Pacific Lumber Mill. Since the action would be happening on Labor Day, and people wouldn’t be working, a symbolic type of action like Ft. Bragg was all we could do: a march to Pacific Lumber down Hwy 101, giving our message to all the vacationers traveling the highway and a rally at the mill parking lot to give Pacific Lumber our message.
Secretly, we all wanted to find a way to do the action on a work day and march thousands of people to Pacific Lumber and shut them down, but we knew we couldn’t keep people around in any numbers after Labor Day.
Now the guts of putting it together. The Grateful Dead said they would play for us if we would do it the weekend before Labor Day. Nope, that wasn’t what we wanted. This was to be a political action, not a concert, and we wanted to draw people interested in the information, workshops, and trainings that would be happening all week. So, their offer was declined and most of the performers recruited for the event were politically motivated like the Eco-Tones, Alice DiMicele, Joanne Rand, Cecila Ostrow, Clan Dyken, Betsy Rose, Citizens Band, and so on. Attendees would go through nonviolence trainings and workshops all weekend and then march on Pacific Lumber on Monday.
Great plans but then the reality of corporate might struck. Humboldt County wasn’t about to let Redwood Summer do it. They fought our legal right to assemble and took us to court to prevent the use of the Eel River site. Caltrans, who controls the freeway access, refused to allow us to march on the freeway and demanded we go through Fortuna (no problem; we were determined to stay out of Fortuna, except for the off ramp to Pacific Lumber, so at the actual march we would continue on the freeway and our sheer numbers would force them to let us pass). We had to agree to their plans for us during the negotiations, however. Then the City of Fortuna passed a law forbidding Earth First!ers or Redwood Summer from marching in their town, clearly unconstitutional, but it had to be fought in court by the ACLU. David K. and Jim Squatter dealt with running all this stuff through the courts to give us clear rights to assemble, and met with the police to keep up the pressure that it was happening regardless of all their flailing about. The performers and equipment people weren’t coming unless they had assurances that we could be there lawfully.
Because of all the time it took to secure the site, posters were pretty late getting up, though they were in Santa Cruz and the Bay Area earlier on. The press constantly releasing stories that it was called off didn’t help much either, even though we were issuing press releases that it was still on every day. Every few days in those last few weeks, we were having meetings in Arcata or base camp as plans kept changing and new problems arose we were determined to do our best and put together the kind of planning that you need when you are expecting thousands of people to show up and stay for three days.
Local people were meeting with Middle Ground folks (that’s the Humboldt County timber / environmentalists talks) almost daily and trying to calm fears and keep it all from being confrontational. After we had moved base camp to the site and started setting up, 24 hours before we expected people to begin arriving, we were served a legal brief in which the local dairy farmers were suing the State Lands Commission and Humboldt County for allowing us to use the site, demanding an immediate temporary restraining order. We knew they weren’t going to fight for our right to assemble so, with the help of Jay Moller whose TRO’s have been precedent setting, we were in court again. The day before the event we defeated the last attempt to stop it.
The stage arrived, the site was set, Redwoodstock had jumped the last hurdle thrown at it by the Big Timber-owned Government and it happened. Workshops, speeches, music, food and crafts booths, local people treated with respect when they came and encouraged to set up booths (though I admit it was hard for me to swallow the Christian anti-abortion booth with the piano music, but we had said all local people were welcome!) When you talk about it as a “Hippie Event” I’m not sure quite what you are talking about. There were lots of hippies there, just like Ft. Bragg and Samoa, and there were lots of non-hippies, just like Ft. Bragg and Samoa. It was only during the last week of planning that we started hearing from the environmentalists in Mendocino County that they didn’t like the event and were scared and weren’t coming. Where were they in the planning? We would have welcomed them and their alternative ideas with open arms. They were very, very silent when the work was being done! Since most of them are more non-hippie-looking than hippie-looking, would you have thought it a non-hippie event if more of them had shown up? It would have been lovely if everyone had shown up in their Easter outfits, singing “God Bless America.” I suppose, but we are dealing with reality here, As it was, most of the march participants dressed in somber clothes, by consensus rather than the tie dye you saw at Ft. Bragg and Samoa.
On Saturday night, even though the soundman was exhausted from working over 16 hours, the loggers who wanted to speak from the stage were made welcome. We heard from a Pacific Lumber log truck driver about how he felt his life was endangered when he came barreling over the hill to find a slash blockade in his way. Though many of us wanted to say “Slow down and your life and future job won’t be endangered,” we were respectful as he told us how they are acting out of fear for their lives and jobs and we need to stop scaring them. Later a few people listened to and talked with him and his friends, hoping to reach an understanding of what our mutual goals are. They felt powerless to do anything about the takeover of their company. Perhaps a dialog will start up that gives these men tools to stop the overcutting that is going to drive them out of their jobs.
Everything about the event was fine except for one major flaw! The people showed up in hundreds, not thousands, and the police turned many of them away as they were ticketed for bald tires, a tail light out, or whatever could be found to stop and harass them. Many didn’t make it through that police blockade. By Saturday night the police had mellowed out. They saw that the terrorist title didn’t quite fit what we were doing and worked more with us; The next day as Jello Biafra gave his fine speech about men who worship the flag and symbols instead of the actual land and people they represent, the police got a little edgy (don’t mess with their icons) but it mellowed back down and they were our best T-shirt customers.
By Monday the crowd was down to about 400 and we faced the truth that there weren’t enough of us to defy the order to march through Fortuna without a mass arrest being likely. Unless everyone was willing to face arrest, and there wasn’t any possibility of coming to that consensus then, we were stuck with the police route. 2,000 people could have done it, but a few hundred could easily be rounded up and arrested. We even knew what building they would herd us into if we tried it.
We agreed not to incite the local people with drums while in Fortuna and to sing a song they all knew, This Land is Your Land. Agreement was also reached to not shout back to them but to stay respectful at all times, Our target was Pacific Lumber, not the timber worker, and we were going to focus on that. Patrick Shannon had said he was going to try to get timber workers to march with us, and we looked forward to that to help get our point across, but they didn’t show.[1] He was to be our key speaker at the rally, in the mill’s parking lot.
We marched. We were respectful, and we got eggs, paint balloons, and insults thrown at us, but we stayed together and peaceful. Many people on the sidewalks of Fortuna gave us the high sign and sang along with us. Most of the people on the two miles of Highway 101 we walked on were on our side and supportive. There were also angry people telling us we stunk and should wipe our asses with a spotted owl. When we got to the mill site we met with the major part of the angry loggers. They had been there a while hurling insults at the police, calling them fascists, and telling them to “go home” pushing their way through them, and generally treating them in a way that would have had any of us arrested in a second. As we approached, a few loggers at the mill punched the police and tried to drive through them to get at us. We marched in and the police were not in control and too scattered. The loggers crowded in upon us to intermingle and cause a riot. We all just sat down! It was a moment I will never forget. I sat there directly in front of the loggers with their legs and boots inches from my face wondering if I was going to be stomped to death, and not regretting one minute that I was there. We sang We Shall Overcome and many of us answered their angry shouting with “Let’s talk.” Patrick tried to speak but only those close to him could hear as the loggers shouted him down. We were trapped between the closed gate of Pacific Lumber and the loggers of the region and it was very apt.
It wasn’t going to happen that day, but I wonder if some of those loggers weren’t thinking that perhaps these so-called terrorists who sit down in front of them instead of hurling insults back can’t, perhaps, be a bridge between them and those locked gates. Maybe even before the forests are gone and those gates are locked forever. I Guess I was swept up by the power of the moment. We aren’t going to be that bridge, but someone, something has to be, and the look on some of those faces as we sat down instead of attacking back means some brain cells clicked on.
The march back was anti-climactic but triumphant. It was a day of miracles. The miracle that we were able to look that hostility in the eye without flinching and still say “Let’s talk”; the miracle that no one was shot or beaten; the miracle that Redwood Summer kept to its nonviolent code throughout the summer; the wonderful miracle that Judi Bari, the one who paid the biggest price, thinks she will walk again; the miracle that thousands of people came, were radicalized and have returned to their homes to organize there. These miracles and more made Redwood Summer a huge success. We’ve gotten the Timber Beast’s attention. Now can we guide it onto the path that will mean a future for all the species of this land?
Note:
[1] The problem was, Shannon had been thoroughly discredited among the other Pacific Lumber workers, many of whom were shouting “traitor!” and other insults at Shannon at this event.