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BUILDING THE MOVEMENT
“Minneapolis Is Revolting”—a roving demonstration held on October 16, 1986—was the first major action of the Back Room Anarchist center. “Building the Movement” was the second. The five-day conference, which took place from June 18-22, 1987, drew 250 participants to the Back Room Anarchist Bookstore. According to contemporary news reports, the conference aimed to unite pacifists, leftists feminists, and politically-aware punks.(31)
Whitney Clark:
Of course, tons of anarchists descended on us from all across the country. I lived in a collective house at the time, and we put up a bunch of those people. They stayed with us for a few days.
Chuck Miller, a professor of English, and a longtime resident of Iowa City, IA, was one the attendees at the “Building the Movement” conference.
Chuck Miller:
You don’t find too many anarchist conferences! So when you hear of them, you say: “Well, hell! Let’s go!” –‘cause then you get to meet other anarchists.
Building the Movement was the Back Room’s largest undertaking. The actual conference took place in the basement of the nearby Simpson Church, followed by an outdoor picnic in Fair Oaks Park. Workshops included topics such as “Squatting and Surviving Without Work,” and “Punks Unity Group.” Despite the fairly innocuous nature of the gathering, police raided the bookstore on the night of Thursday, June 19th. Three people were arrested for resisting arrest.(32)
Chuck Miller and journalist Gloria Walker were socializing at the Back Room when policemen stormed the building.
Chuck Miller:
The police came the first night, and they were totally nuts. It was like a police riot…! It was nasty. And it presaged the [protest] march two or three days later, when they attacked the marchers. I had left already by that time, so I felt kind of weird that I wasn’t there when the police attacked the demonstrators.
Gloria Walker:
It was unprovoked!
Chuck Miller:
Totally unprovoked. We were standing around the bookstore talking, and they came running in, shouting and screaming, with their clubs unsheathed. They were totally ballistic! We said, “Well, what is this?” We hadn’t done anything.
Gloria Walker:
My memory is, that we remained very calm, It was kind of annoying. It felt ridiculous.
Chuck Miller:
They said some anarchist had wandered into the storefront next door, and they’d called the police. We thought it sounded like a provocation, but who knows? It could be true. In other words, we didn’t know anything about it. Were just drinking soda pop and talking to people.
Gloria Walker:
And it was clear to me that it was because we were a crowd of self-identified anarchists.
They moved everybody out. They were so brisk with it, and it scattered everyone so quickly, that we didn’t know where we were going to stay that evening… it was a little uncomfortable.
Chuck Miller:
The cops were out of their head. And you know, Minneapolis-St. Paul has a reputation for being a liberal community. But these cops were pigs. There’s no question about it.
At age 47, Miller was more than twice as old as most of the participants. Walker was 37 –this was her second anarchist convention.
Chuck Miller:
It was mostly young people. We met one older woman there who was 56 or 57… We didn’t feel so much of a generational conflict, but you felt a gap.
Gloria Walker:
I didn’t feel a gap, I just felt excitement, because most of the anarchists I knew at that time were older people. I found it really exciting that there were a lot of younger people there.
Chuck Miller:
The anarchists that I knew were mainly from St. Louis, and they were all a little older than me. So I thought it was interesting to meet some of these younger anarchists.
But I did feel a gap. And part of the gap–and this is an issue that I’ve never really sorted out—is to what extent do I believe in anarchism as an abstract, political point of view? And to what extent am I just involved with all the friends I know…?
There seems to be some sort of schism between your personal feeling for people, and this theoretical point of view.
Gloria Walker:
The first anarchist gathering I went to was in Chicago. I met Mel Most there. Mel’s parents were anarchists, and he had grown up knowing Emma Goldman. He was a descendent of Johann Most.
Johann Most (1846-1906) was a German-born anarchist who became a leading advocate of “propaganda of the deed.” His book The Science of Revolutionary Warfare gave instructions on the use of dynamite. Emma Goldman was one of his followers (though she later broke him).
Gloria Walker:
Mel was 75 when he died in 1990, and we’d been friends for several years. He introduced me to a lot of people. He introduced me to Judith Malina (who started the Living Theater). And he introduced me to the woman who started the union for prostitutes in San Francisco.
I SMELL A RAT
Though it can’t be proven, there is strong circumstantial evidence that an undercover agent was working at the conference.
Chuck Miller:
I remember, there was a weird guy there –he was either an anarchist, or an agent provocateur. I thought that, chances were, he was an agent provocateur. He kept talking about offing people and violent acts. And when he started that kind of talk… not that people didn’t have some sympathy with him… but they more or less said: “Oh… I don’t necessarily want to do such things… I don’t feel that way…. I don’t feel like killing people/ beating people/ smashing people…”
I remember him because he showed up in a couple of the same workshops I was in. He was a little spooky every time.
He might have been a real anarchist… And yet, he was so over-the-top, I thought: “I’ll bet that he’s a spy for the FBI.” And I think that other people thought that, too! So everybody cut this guy some slack. Like, if he was going to talk a bunch of violent bullshit, there was nothing that you could do about it. But don’t let him stir you up, or try to provoke you!
WHAT DO PEOPLE REALLY DO AT AN ANARCHIST CONVENTION?
Gloria Walker:
I remember a discussion about gay rights… They were very intellectual, and I remember being impressed by the thoughtfulness of people there. People were obviously very well read. And they were willing to think about creating a new society based on more egalitarian ways of dealing with power. And certainly, I don’t remember anyone advocating violence. I’m a very committed pacifist myself.
Chuck Miller:
There were a bunch of punk anarchists there, and they talked about their anarchism… The other workshop I remember was about squatting. It was more-or-less anecdotes about squatting, advice from people who had done it… practical tips.
Gloria Walker:
I’m surprised I wouldn’t have gone to that, ‘cause I’d been a squatter in London, and I’d interviewed squatters in New York, and done a workshop on squatting.
“I AM NOT OBSCENE”
To cap off the weekend’s festivities, Building the Movement ended with a carnival of chaos on Monday, June 23, 1987. At 12:30 PM, 300 people armed with noisemakers gathered outside of the Hennepin County Government Center, where someone spiked the water fountain.
With soap suds welling up in the middle of the reflecting pool, the protesters were off, weaving their way through the streets of downtown Minneapolis, spray painting graffiti near the Federal Reserve Building, defacing a sculpture, and brandishing their tits.(33) Police moved in to arrest the perpetrators, spraying the anarchists with mace and liquid tear gas, a punishment that was not entirely undeserved. One man was injured after a plainclothes policeman (officer Steve Day) pushed him off his bike.(34) Five people were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.(35)
Whitney Clark:
A War Chest Tour was done as part of that conference. We decided to take advantage of the fact that there were lots of seasoned activists in town. They swelled our ranks.
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