By Utah Phillips, Original Source Document, June 6, 1990
Dear Friends and Fellow Workers,
[Edmund] Burke said, “I trust that I will not be judged by the frequency of my correspondence.” I admit that mine has been all but nonexistent, but something has come up that I want all of you to know about: The Redwood Summer here in Northern California.
I apologize for the “form” nature of this letter, but given the length of my mailing list it seems expedient. For the most part you all know each other and have worked together in the past. Hopefully, we can work together now on a project which holds great promise for the I.W.W. and the Direct Action Movement generally.
Recently I visited for several days with F[ellow] W[orker] Judi Bari at her home in Redwood Valley over in Mendocino County. I went over to discuss four things:
- Non-violence training.
- Major differences between Redwood Summer and the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964.
- Progress in organizing drives in the mills at Cloverdale and Ft. Bragg and the growth of I.W. W. Local #1.
- Structure and tactics of the Redwood Summer Campaign.
This letter is in the nature of a report to all of you of those discussions and later events. The enclosed material was copied from Judi’s files which she shared with me during our visit. I have condensed much of it, reduced the volume my making two-sided copies and sorted it according to subject matter.
The first group, through the Cherney Proposal on non-violence, concerns the Summer itself. The second group, “What is the I.W.W”[1] thru the kid’s poster concerns the I.W.W. and growing worker support for environmental action. Judi has spent time at Highlander Center in Tennessee and has been responsible for getting mill workers and others to Highlander workshops as well. Highlander is the place where much of the Freedom School planning went on in 1964. Judi [Bari] and Darryl Cherney, Earth First! organizers, both joined the I.W.W. during (Earth First!)’s rendezvous last summer.[2] Fellow Workers Allan Anger and Gary Cox were there, Gary with the financial assistance of Art Nurse, our Fellow Worker now deceased.[3] The result was the creation of Earth First! - I.W.W. Local #1. Judi Bari brings to both organizations a wealth of experience as a labor organizer in Maryland for a number of years. The thrust of her efforts in Northern California has been to build solid bridges between workers and environmentalists. (Note: the enclosed Renunciation or Tree Spiking is a direct result of these efforts.)
The third group of papers covers briefly a campaign of disinformation advanced by lumber companies. According to Judi, the “Fight Back” flyer was generated by the public relations firm of Hill and Knowlton for Pacific Lumber. The other is of unknown origin. Judi described the “hate campaign” against Redwood Summer as having three sources: the lumber companies themselves and two fringe, organizations known as “The Stompers” and “The Yellow Ribbon People”. You will also find in this group the old “minute Man” crosshairs over Judi’s picture and other pieces of hate mail one of which is a computer generated letter which has gone out (with gender change) to most Northern California EF!ers. Some preliminary investigation seems to indicate that these letters originated from an off-road vehicle organization in Southern California.[4] The fourth set of papers indicate what happened when the local police failed to follow up on any of these threats.
I would like all of you to please read, digest and pass on as much of this material as possible. Moreover, I would like us all to participate in building this summer as a way to rebuild the union on an active, direction action base involving useful and long overdue coalitions. And of course saving the redwoods, which is what this is all about. Now, those of you who remember the W.D.U. split recall that it was in the main precipitated by the inability of the G.E.B. to get organizers out here when they had been asked for by several I.W.A. locals who wanted to talk about reaffiliating with the I.W.W.[5] Well, here it is, come round again. I’m asking the W.D.U. breakaways and all disaffected fellow workers to take out your cards again by joining the Ft. Bragg local and offering that support, organizational, financial, and physical which Chicago sometimes seems reluctant to provide. (It should interest you to know, though, that Nelson bequest money is being provided to Judi who, because of her organizing efforts, has been unable to pursue her trade as a carpenter.)[6] I think that you will find the solid, aggressive, feisty and thoroughly anarchic methods of the Ft. Bragg group to be like a breath of fresh air. The Secretary-Treasurer is Anna Marie, (Stenberg). I’ve met and talked with Anna Marie. She’s a spoiler, very focused, and no nonsense. Like Judi, she’s also put in time at Highlander.
That Green Union Guy's Notes:
[1] This leaflet is reposted here.
[2] This is actually wrong by one year. Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney actually joined the IWW two summers previously (see One Big Union, Part VIII, Chapter 28 for details). Utah Phillips was fond of jokingly saying, “You know what they say, when your memory goes—forget it!”
[3] The historical significance of Art Nurse’s connection to Judi Bari, even by one degree of separation is worth repeating: Nurse was from Montana and joined the IWW in 1918, one year after the IWW Timber Workers Industrial Union won the eight-hour day throughout the Pacific Northwest by striking on the job. Nurse would no doubt have known many of these workers. His membership in the IWW was continuous until his dying day. Judi Bari was therefore only two degrees of separation away from many of the IWW timber workers she often spoke of in her talks on IWW history!
[4] This organization was called “The Sahara Club”.
[5] The history of the WDU (Wobblies for a Democratic Union) split is not well documented.
[6] The Nelson bequest refers to the estate of a deceased IWW member willed to the IWW, which has occurred from time-to-time over the years.
As for direct participation in the summer, please call Betty Ball, who is on top of most everything… And, of course Fellow Worker Jess Grant of the Bay Area I.W.W. who is on top of much of this…So dig in now. The time is at hand.
The scope of the summer is as follows:
- Setting up a base camp in the forest (in progress);
- Setting up non-violent training centers (in progress);
- Fundraising headed by Earth First!’s Mike Roselle (he is good at it);
- networking peace/environmental groups;
- organizing food drives;
- unannounced actions at THP (Timber Harvest Plan) sites;
- Judi’s proposal adopted at the May 24 general meeting at the Seeds of Peace house in Berkeley concerning announced actions:
- June 20: Blockade Louisiana Pacific Dock, land and sea in Samoa over on the coast. I.W.W. petitions I.W.A. to honor picket lines (action against exports).
- July 21: Fort Bragg Georgia-Pacific mill. Block Mill and Hwy 1. Issues: Liquidation logging, 3rd world issues (timber to Mexico for milling) Largest I.W.W. support;
- July 27-30: Sequoia Action around Sequoia National Forest. Action July 29. TREE SIT (9,000 out of 2,000 acres are scheduled for clear cut.)
- Labor Day: Concert with Hog Farm perhaps at French’s Camp near Arcata. Concert main event called: Redwoodstock (Don’t you wish you’d thought of that one? This last includes a proposal to take over the town of Scotia.)
Now you can plan for one or all of these or perhaps put in a week at the base camp and fan out with the rest. This “schedule” was excerpted from my notes at the “Seeds” (of Peace) meeting in Berkeley. Joanna and I attended that meeting with Judi as well and one the night before in Willits between Redwood Summer people and small timber operators held for the purpose of heading off any violence. We left Judi after the meeting at the Seeds of Peace house and drove back up here to Nevada City. The next day, Judi and Darryl Cherney were driving down to Santa Cruz when a bomb exploded in Judi’s car. Darryl got minor injuries but Judi will be in the hospital for several months with a broken pelvis and internal injuries. The F.B.I. and Oakland Homicide have both been up here to talk to Joanna and me. The police have arrested both Darryl and Judi for transporting explosives. Darryl is out on bail and Judi is in Highland Hospital, East Oakland, under “protective” custody.
A “confession” was mailed to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat…indicating that the bomb was placed in the car at the Willits meeting that Tuesday evening, (May) 22. If that’s the case then we were driving around with it for quite a while. Hence the official visits. In any case, the same paper reviews the Timber Pact which came out of that and subsequent meetings and shows the extent to which local Earth First! is willing to accommodate the interests of loggers and small operators. As of this date charges are pending but have not been filed.
Tomorrow, June 7, we will go to an E.F.! action at the export dock in Sacramento. Then I’ll go down to Berkeley for an interview with the detective hired by Earth First! to look into the bombing. Tomorrow evening I’ll attend the west coast memorial to Highlander founder Myles Horton and try to get some of them involved, especially Cordell Reagon and Willie Peacock and other freedom singers who live out here now.
Well, my friends, that’s it. What do you think? Let me know, huh?
See You in the Redwoods,
—Bruce (Utah).