Spirit of protest reborn at the University of California

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7000 Berkeley students gather in Steve Biko Plaza during April 24 national student strike against apartheid. ILWU president speaks at Berkeley The following speech was given by Jimmy Herman, international president of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, to a studentlabor rally on April 18 at the U.C. Berkeley campus.

You should know that this is a delegation of the elected working-class delegates to the highest governing body of a great union-the ILWU. We are in a recess from the 26th annual convention, where we formulate policy and adopt One of the issues high on our agenda was a position rejecting the sickness occurring in South Africa: to demand an end to apartheid, to demand that Black citizens of that country be treated with the dignity to which they are entitled and Part of this delegation is made up of sugar workers, pineapple workers, longshoremen, warehousemen, and ship scalers. We represent a million workers all of whom agree; all of whom lock hands with the rest of the world's working class to call for an end now to apartheid and an end to repression.

We are here today as we joined with the students over 20 years ago to reject the tragedy of Vietnam. This union is proud to join hands with you and declare that nothing has changed when it comes to our appetite for decency.

We know that our friends of the victimized Black majority of that country going to seize power. Anything that we can do to guarantee that—the sooner We will also be participating in a dramatic march on Saturday —a march for a peaceful world, for a nuclear-free world, a march against militarism, a march for a peaceful economy, a march against a government that is wasting money in a shameful display of military-martial nonsense. This, too, has to end. I hope you will join with us on Saturday as we joined with you today.

BERKELEY, Calif.—The Berkeley campus of the University of California has lived up to its reputation gained over 20 years earlier during the Free Speech Movement (FSM). In response to the arrest of 159 student protesters blockading the entrance to U.C. Berkeley's administration building on April 16, thousands of students poured out for noontime protest rallies Tuesday and Wednesday, April 16-17.

The week before, 50 students had begun a sit-in to protest the university's financial connections with corporations and financial institutions that invest in South Africa. A similar sit-in was being held at Columbia University in New York.

The students plastered long banners across the front of the building proclaiming their opposition to apartheid And they brought their sleeping bags, proof of their determination to stay until the university had completely divested itself of its $1.8 billion portfolio in companies that do business in South Africa.

They renamed Sproul Plaza, where the rally was held, Stephen Biko Plaza. Stephen Biko was a leader of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa. Imprisoned by the apartheid regime, he was found dead in his cell and is probably the most famous martyr of the anti-apartheid movement.

Initially, the university had declared the sit-in to be legal and did not attempt to arrest anyone. However, U.C. administration official Ira Heymann reversed his earlier stand and said that the sit-in violated the 1964 policy that allowed students to organize protests on the Berkeley campus but which prohibited them from blocking the entrance to any of the buildings.

At the April 16 rally, attended by over 3000 students, Mario Savio, an organizer of the Free Speech Movement 20 years earlier, and Mike Smith, an organizer for the Service Employees International Union Local 250 and also a former participant in the FSM, denounced the administration's stance. Savio reminded the crowd that "the reason that the Free Speech Movement is remembered is that it won."

He added that the FSM was begun by students civil rights activists "protesting against racism."

On April 17 Dick Groulx, representing the Alameda County Central Labor Council, brought greetings from the 150 unions and 60,000 workers that it represents. He elicited cheers from the students when he told them: 'Ronald Reagan is a rotten, prejudiced old man."

And he reminded them that students and workers are "natural allies." Several rank-and-file delegates to the ILWU convention also spoke, bringing greetings from locals as far away as Hawaii and Canada.

Meanwhile, Berkeley judges refused to hear the cases of the students arrested in the protests against apartheid. One of them explained that her "deep moral repugnance" to the system of South African apartheid prevented her from objectively ruling on these cases.

The student protests are the first signs of a revival of the kind of militancy that helped put an end to the Vietnam War.

The defiant spirit of the growing student movement was captured by one banner in front of the administration building that gave-Clint Eastwoodstyle-its answer to the 159 arrests: "Regents: Go ahead. Make our day!" • As we go to press, students on four University of California campuses have mounted anti-apartheid sit-ins in solidarity with the Berkeley students. In addition to the action at Santa Cruz, demonstrators at U.C. Davis began a sit-in on the steps of the administration building on April 22. At least 1000 people rallied at UCLA on April 23, and 400 students sat-in at the administration building there. At U.C. Santa Barbara organizers urged students to "pre-register" for orderly arrest on April 24.

are the MAY 1985