Berkeley's Lesson For the Left

In most of the country, these are bleak times for the American left. After seven years of a Democratic president's triangulation, many liberals feel sold out even in their own party. College students, among the most energetic fighters for radical causes in days past, have tuned out politics in record numbers.

The galaxy of left-wing causes has dissipated: Backers of affirmative action and abortion rights, gay activists and Greens, feminists and labor leaders have little to say to each other, still less to do for one another.

Most of the country, that is, except for Berkeley, the city that invented the Sixties. This university town across the bay from San Francisco may be the only place in America where a cry of "power to the people" isn't hopelessly outmoded and ironic. Berkeley's storied liberalism is still in evidence: On the campus of the University of California, for instance, a marker on Sproul Plaza declares the spot "shall not be a part of any nation."

Telegraph Avenue, the city's most famous thoroughfare, is dotted with used bookstores and homegrown coffeehouses. A block east is People's Park, originally a vacant lot seized from the university, so sacred to radicals that even the idea of the construction of a small volleyball court in 1991 led to accusations of tyranny, sit-ins and arrests. The city's parking meters refer to "Indigenous People's Day" rather than Columbus Day.

It isn't surprising, then, that the newest battle for Berkeley's left may provide an inspiration for liberals nationwide. In recent weeks, an escalating controversy over KPFA, the Bay Area's pioneering non-commercial radio station and a Berkeley institution, has rallied the far-flung factions of activists under a single banner. That newfound unity proves that the left can have a powerful voice, if only those factions attempt to speak as one.

KPFA was founded in 1949 by a Bay Area pacificst a way to disseminate radical ideas ignored by traditional mass media. Over the years, the station provided a critical tool for emerging political groups-including the anti-war, environmental and gay rights movements-to reach a broad audience in the San Francisco area. In the days before fax machines, cable television and the Internet, radio was the most efficient way to mobilize large crowds for protests and to make new converts through consciousness-raising. Activists say that despite new technologies, KPFA is still a vital element of their work. Its eclectic programming ranges from Noam Chomsky to hip hop.

The station is owned by the not-for-profit Pacifica Foundation, which operates four other left-wing radio outlets across the country. In recent years, the individual stations have increasingly clashed with the foundation about autonomy and appeal to broader markets. That clash came to a boil in March, when Pacifica fired KPFA's popular station manager, Nicole Sawaya. When veteran DJ Larry Bensky questioned that firing on the air, he was fired too. Listeners lodged complaints, Pacifica hired armed guards, and on July 13 KPFA's staff found themselves locked out of their own building, a broadcaster pulled off the air in mid-sentence. Rumors swarmed that the Pacifica board planned to sell the station's bandwidth.

The response from listeners was electric: Within hours of the shutdown, staffers and supporters set up camp outside KPFA's barricaded offices. For three weeks, protesters kept a 24-hour vigil outside the studios, picketing during the day and sleeping in tents in the middle of the street at night. Unlike more narrowly targeted actions, the KPFA demonstrations attracted a diverse lot-lifelong activists and aging hippies mingled with working professionals, neighbors and students, black and Latino as well as white. For decades, KPFA had supported everyone's movement, so when KPFA was in trouble, everyone came.

That diverse coalition was on glorious display at a July 31 rally in the city's Martin Luther King Park. More than 10,000 people turned out for the rally, the largest in Berkeley since the Vietnam War, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Political cross-pollination was the rule. Tables set up around the perimeter advertised the Sierra Club, the Peace and Freedom Party, the Police Review Commission and even the Rally to Prevent Y2K Catastrophe.

More offbeat allegiances, too: One woman strolled around topless with a sign reading, "Let Our Bodies Speak"; a speaker claimed KPFA had broken the story of a UFO cover-up. Groups' representatives thrust leaflets at each other, signed each other's petitions and joined each other's mailing lists and donor rolls. Speakers who were black, Native American, Puerto Rican and gay, took the podium to tell the crowd how KPFA had spread the word for their movements when no one else could, or would. One woman shouted, "We're winning! And we're winning because of our unity!"

The lesson for the left is perhaps as old as American history: Hang together or hang separately. Undoubtedly the backing of so many different parties bolstered KPFA's staff in their fight with the Pacifica brass. The stunning diversity gave lie to Pacifica chair Mary Francis Berry's claim that KPFA's only listeners were "white males over 50." Smelling votes, the state Legislature even launched an audit of the foundation's tactics.

Progressives at Harvard could take a page from the Berkeley playbook. Hundreds of people backing each other's causes is more impressive than small handfuls at isolated candlelight vigils and demonstrations. In that vein, the Rally for Justice in March was an important step. Conservatives criticized the rally which linked the Progressive Students Labor Movement, the Coalition against Sexual Violence and the Living Wage Campaign, for bringing together causes that had nothing in common. But it's no accident that the Rally for Justice made CNN and The New York Times and brought students' complaints to the fore.

Here in Berkeley, Pacifica finally relented a bit last week allowing staff to return to their building and restart programming as usual. Activists caution that the battle over the station is far from finished. They are planning another rally for this weekend. But with the left united behind it, KPFA's future is looking brighter than before.

Adam A. Sofen '01, a Crimson editor, is a history and literature concentrator in Pforzheimer House. This summer he is working as a courier for a San Francisco-based attorney service.