NOTE: This chapter is still being written. I am posting the sections that are more-or-less "finished."

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

The Honeywell Project was this more mature, long term organizing project that was made up of older activists. Sixties-era activists. And we would participate. We agreed with them, but we weren’t the leadership. The younger people weren’t planning it. We were sort of helping out, lending our forces to those efforts. And we would work with some of those people on the other big topical demos. Marv Davidov would be at most of our campus demonstrations.

- Whitney Clark

            While it is tempting to treat the subcultural movements of 1980’s as a distinct cultural phenomenon, the truth is that history doesn’t work that way. There was no mythical “Year Zero” which neatly separates the “punk rock era” from that of the previous generation (indeed, the principle designers and theoreticians of the early punk movement were all former-hippies).(1) Alternative culture didn’t just appear, fully formed, in 1977 –it was built on the foundation laid by the cultural radicals of the early 1970s. “I certainly wanted to be a hippie,” says cartoonist Gary Panter. “Punk was just a new way to scare your parents, I think. The new look to distress mom and dad.”

            Nowhere was this more the case than in the realm of radical politics. Punk protest was strongly influenced by the Direct Action Movement –anti-nuclear activists who engaged in symbolic acts of civil disobedience (from trespassing at bomb testing facilities to hammering on missile silos). Eschewing party politics, Direct Action groups believed in a type of leaderless resistance based on grassroots democracy, egalitarianism, and nonviolent propaganda of the deed. This appealed to younger radicals, who had little time for liberal politicians who paid lip service to their concerns, while voting in favor of new weapons systems.

           The birthplace the American Indian Movement (AIM), Minnesota has a long tradition of radical politics, dating back to founding of the independent Farmer-Labor Party in 1918. In 1931, Farmer-Labor candidate Floyd B. Olson—a former member of the Industrial Workers of the World—was elected governor of Minnesota, earning 59% of the popular vote.

Three years later, Trotskyist organizers from Local 574 led a bloody Teamsters Strike, an important event in the history of the labor movement, which catapulted the International Brotherhood of Teamsters into the front ranks of the AFL.(2) After losing three successive gubernatorial elections to third party candidates, the state Democratic Party formally merged with the Farmer-Labor Party to become the Minnesota DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor).

By the end of the 1960’s, Minneapolis had become a hotbed of anti-war activism –as well as an incubator for the newly resurgent strains of anarchism. With thousands of young men refusing to accept the draft, “over half of all Federal court cases in the Twin Cities”(3) were targeting war resisters.

            In July 1970, eight men were arrested while trying to destroy the files at Draft Board offices in rural Minnesota. These men became known as “the Minnesota Eight.”

The Minnesota 8

Don Olson:

“The Twin Cities was a center of draft resistance. I did a lot of street counseling in the Sixties, and would funnel people into the Twin Cities Draft Information Center. Whenever we would have more than five people in a day, we would hold a demonstration. One day we had 26 people who refused the draft. The day I refused there were six of us.

“In the spring of 1970, after the invasion of Cambodia and the great Student Strike, a group of us decided we wanted to do some Draft Board raids throughout Minnesota. We were going to take out the draft files so that everyone could make up their own mind whether or not they wanted to go to Vietnam. Unfortunately, the FBI was waiting for us one night at three of the places, and eight of us were arrested.

“There were a lot of demonstrations in our support; big rallies around the Minneapolis Courthouse, and some illegal marches that went [to the courthouse] and surrounded it… Eventually, we had our bail reduced from $50,000 to $10,000. Back then, that was a lot of money!

“One of the trials went before a judge who wouldn’t let anything [about the war] get in. There was another trial where we were able to bring out a lot of information about the illegal activities during the war –ecocide, atrocities committed by US soldiers, and other things. Daniel Ellsberg tried to release the Pentagon Papers during the trial, but couldn’t. This was before he released them in 1971…

“We were all found guilty and got the maximum sentence of five years in jail. In the one trial, Judge Phillip Neville had allowed the jury to hear all of this testimony, but at the end, he said that they couldn’t consider it. The jury foreman was crying and apologizing for his involvement in the Korean War. They didn’t know about Jury Nullification.

“I learned pottery in prison. I became a great handball player. We got out after 20 months on a special parole.”

The Honeywell Project

Marv Davidov:

By 1964 I’d gotten seriously involved with Vietnam. This lasted until the war ended in 1975. I worked in Berkeley with the Vietnam Day Committee. I worked with Jerry Rubin and many others. Then I went to L.A. and helped organize draft resistance—burning draft cards and so-on—which by 1967 was a Federal Offense. And we'd light 'em up every place we went!

And then I came home and started-up the Honeywell Project, which lasted from 1968 - 1990.

The Honeywell Project was started to protest the manufacturing of cluster bombs –steel ball bearings imbedded in a steel shell. When it explodes, the steel ball bearings shoot-out at 2,200 feet-per-second. It's aerial terrorism.

We had one demonstration with 40 people, and then about six months later we had 65, and then 200. By April of 1970, there were 2,500-3000 people protesting at their annual Shareholders' Meeting.

“The were FBI informants in our group for a three year period. The White House was interested. This [period of surveillance] went from 1969-1972. They admit to that. And since [the FBI] are usually lying, you can guess it went further.”

According to the Associated Press, “Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in Minneapolis spied on persons critical of Honeywell Inc. and passed on information to company officials.”(4) An earlier report in the Minneapolis Tribune included quotes from “a confidential source in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities.”

Marv Davidov:

“We had a lawsuit started in 1977 by the American Civil Liberties Union, charging the management of Honeywell and the U.S. Justice Department with abridgement of our civil liberties. We finally settled in 1985 when the U.S. Government and Honeywell gave us $70,000 –never admitting that they did anything wrong.”

“Neither Honeywell, nor the U.S. Government would do anything about de-mining.  And thousands of people have been maimed or killed by landmines and cluster bombs… So we took the entire $35,000 that Honeywell had given us, and sent it to the Quakers—the American Friends Services Committee—who had a ‘Shovels for Laos’ project. Because even to this day, peasants will put a hole in the earth in Indochina (North and South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) and blow themselves up.  And with a ten-dollar shovel they can dig slower, and when they hit metal, they can stop.”

AIM

            Minneapolis was also home to the American Indian Movement (AIM), a group that remains controversial 30 years after its inception. AIM is best remembered now its role in an armed standoff on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and the occupation of the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. The “Red Power” movement had forever altered the relationship between the U.S. Government and Native American tribes. Native spiritual practices were decriminalized; Congress passed the Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act of 1975. Soon, tribal governments began to re-assert their rights under the old broken treaties. None of this would have been possible prior to the assertion of Red Power. AIM members also played a pivotal role in the establishment of the first urban housing cooperative to be owned and managed by Native Americans –Little Earth of the United Tribes.

            The American Indian Movement had had a profound effect on the evolution of the Twin Cities activist community. Many radicals were inspired by their example –as were the founders of In the Heart of the Beast. AIM leaders Clyde and Vernon Bellecourt were familiar faces at local protests, as the interests of Native activists, the Peace Movement, the Central America solidarity movement, and environmentalists began to intersect. By the end of the 1980’s, AIM was frequently working in coalition with Twin Cities anarchist groups.(5)

Walker Community Methodist Church

Don Olson:

“Walker Church was an incubator for many things. Brian Peterson was an activist minister. He was active in the DFL, but he was very interested in social justice. He was president of the board of KFAI Radio. Brian tragically died of a heart attack 10 years ago. He died in his sleep. I told him he should eat better.”

           During the 1970’s, the Walker Community Church served as the initial headquarters for Fresh Air Radio (KFAI), a noncommercial community radio station “broadcasting 10 watts from studios in a vacant loft,” with “mice and bats to keep the programmers company.”(6) The station later expanded, boosting their FM signal to 170 watts, with separate towers in Minneapolis and St. Paul. It remains the only local radio station to broadcast programs in the Somali, Ethiopian, and Hmong languages.

Don Olson:

“I taught there in the neighborhood arts program. There was a theater upstairs –a really vibrant community theater. The Powderhorn Puppet Theater started there –which is now In the Heart of the Beast. Walker Church was very important as a place. And it continues to offer space for a lot of programs.”

NEXT: Northern Sun Alliance