1968

Governor Ronald Reagan attends UC Regents meeting at UCSC and is greeted by mass student protests.

1969

Students demand that College VII be called Malcolm X College with a focus on domestic Third World Concerns. College VII is now called Oakes College.

Students take over portion of commencement address and present an honorary diploma to Huey Newton (who at the time was in prison). Years later, Newton earns a PhD from the History of Consciousness.

1970

Massive Student Protests:

* Student protesters at Kent State and Jackson State are murdered by police, student strikes spread nationally.

* 1,800 students out of a total of 2,200 take over Santa Cruz streets in march to County building to demand we send a representative to Washington to lobby for our withdrawal from Vietnam.

* Spring Term many classes cancelled and others “reorganized� to focus on concerns relevant to Vietnam War.

* Students burn draft cards in Quarry

* Large numbers of students participate in closing down of Highway One in front of Fort Ord

* Women’s Studies Department created

* Student body president Stephen Goldstein critiques UC President Clark Kerr’s book Uses of the University at commencement and Kerr refuses to speak after him

1971

73 neighborhood activists successfully organize to fight the development of Light House field and mark the beginning of the local environmental movement.

Students and community members protest the bombing of Hanoi to by shutting down Highway 17 and Highway 1.

1976

Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV) founded

1976-77

SC activists contribute heavily to the creation of affinity groups within “People for a Nuclear Free Future� and the Abalone Alliance that protest the building of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. No nuclear plant has been built in California since.

1977

The Coalition Against Institutional Racism (CAIR) is formed. The group mobilizes over a thousand students at Hahn Administration building to demand that the University divest from South African apartheid and reject the Bakke decision outlawing affirmative action. 401 students are arrested occupying the building.

A proposal is written calling for the implementation of a Third World and Native American Studies (TWANAS) program at UCSC. The proposal designed a program of domestic and international Third World courses to address a more comprehensive overview of US society. The intent was to examine he dynamic of race and class interactions as a whole rather than merely dwelling on the history of oppression and exploitation of each individual group.

First wave of progressives elected into SC city council. By ’83, progressives constituted the majority on the council and this continues to this day.

1978-79

Growth limitation created in Santa Cruz preserving a “greenbelt� through Measures O+J.

1979

Anti nuclear activists create the “Radio Active Times� and distribute 100,000 issues over the next years.

First issue of the TWANAS newspaper is published.

1981

TWANAS struggle:

1. Ed Castillo, the only instructor teaching Native American Studies, is dismissed. UCSC still has no Black Studies or Chicano Studies programs, and only a half-time position in Asian and Pacific Islander studies.

2. TWANAS and the Native American Studies Support Group merge and decide to present specific demands to secure permanent faculty positions.

3. Nearly 600 people march to the chancellors office and present 5 demands which are to be answered within 5 days. - The University's response doesn't specifically address the demands. Instead, in classic style, the administration proposes the formation of yet another committee.

4. The TWANAS Support Coalition organizes another rally in response, and 25 people commit to not eating until all demands are met.

5. Third World and Native American faculty meet and unanimously agree to support the hunger strike.

6. The University agrees in writing to

a. One tenured track faculty member each in both Asian-American Studies and Native American Studies

b. The continuance of a part-time position in Asian-American Studies.

c. Additional funding for staff to help begin the search and hiring of these faculty;

d. To replace Third World and Native American faculty who go on leave in adherence with affirmative action guidelines;

e. To propose to the Academic Senate that each student be required to take a course substantially focused on Native American and/or the domestic Third World;

f. Increased financial support for the Third World Teaching Resource Center.

"Save our Shores� created in SC to spearhead the movement against off shore oil drilling along the California coast

Santa Cruz Veterans of Foreign Wars (post 5888) expelled from national org for taking an anti-imperialist stand

Mike Rotkin becomes first openly socialist, feminist mayor in United States.

1982

UCSC Earth First! starts holding meetings at College 8.

1983

First office of the soon-to-be national org. “Witnesses for Peace� opens up at RCNV to contest US counter-revolutionary intervention in Latin America, especially Nicaragua.

On June 20th, over a thousand people are arrested blocking the entrance to the Lawrence Livermore Weapons Lab. Five days later more than six thousand join hands around the lab in opposition to the lab's work and in support of the blockaders in jail.

Several test launches of the MX missile from the Vandenberg Airforce Base are cancelled due to security breaches caused by protesters sneaking onto the base. Over 800 people are arrested.

Santa Cruz becomes a “Nuclear Free County�

Demands from 1981 hunger strike remain unmet. Oakes college ethnic studies courses dissolved, only science and writing courses offered in Fall.

1984

TWANAS circulates a petition that shows overwhelming student support for the Ethnic Studies GE.

Demonstrations against plastic packaging staged at McDonalds on Mission Street.

1985

EOP/SAA sponsors a forum for all Third World students. UNITY THROUGH ACTION is born. UTA drew together a coalition of Third World organizations.

UTA/TWANAS petition drive collects 1500 student signatures supporting the Ethnic Studies G.E. requirement. Petitions submitted to the Academic Senate. The Senate votes to include the requirement. VICTORY after 13 years.

City Council declares Santa Cruz a ?Free Port? for trade with Nicaragua after U.S. military mines major Nicaraguan harbors

Westside neighbors organize Westside Community Health Clinic (later to join up with and continue as Planned Parenthood downtown)

Women's Center opens.

1987

Gay Lesbian Bi Trans Intersex Resource Center ("Intersex" added in 2003) space won by students.

1989

City Council explicitly un-invites Navy from visiting harbor for recruitment efforts

1990
Earth Night Action topples power tower in Aptos, blacks out Santa Cruz for 2 days. No one is ever charged for this action.

1991

UCSC/Big Creek starts logging at Elfland over holiday break. 42 people arrested in day-long demonstration and woods actions. Native shell site trampled and sacred sites destroyed. Construction of Colleges 9 & 10 begins. (read the story)

Local activists raise funds to install Chase's "Collateral Damage" statue downtown near the clock tower.

Students and local activists shut down Highway 1 to protest Operation Desert Storm (a.k.a. Bush War I)

African American Resource and Cultural Center opens.

1995

August 6th: 15,000 people gather in downtown SC to honor the victims of the US atomic bombing of Japan

Walnut tree action by Santa Cruz Earth First! fails to save old tree behind former Bookshop site. City sells wood at a profit. Protesters march to demonstration and lockdown at Big Creek Lumber mill in Davenport.

1996

After extensive negotiations with the Regents, the UCSC “Affirmative Action Coalition� mobilized over 500 people and shut down the campus for 7 hours on January 17. “It is our intention to bring to the forefront the issue of affirmative action and the need to act on it, for not to take a stand on affirmative action is to allow racist institutions to uphold a power hierarchy that is detrimental to all.� AAC statement printed in Twanas 2/8/96

Redwood Empire begins logging at Gamecock Canyon. Activists blockade Summit Road until injunction issued. Resistance continues over the next 3 years until monkeywrenching finally bankrupts the company, but not before Gamecock Canyon is trashed.

Chicano Latino Resource Center (El Centro) opens.

1999

Asian American/Pacific Islander Resource Center opens.

2000

18 June, Ramsey Gulch Treesit started by Earth First! with help from Canopy Action Network. Redwood Empire files a lawsuit, then withdraws it, that would bar treesitters from property.

American Indian Resource Center (formerly Native American Resource Center) opens.

E2 first conceptualized with events organized by the Ethnic Student Organization Council and SUA in response to violence and racism on campus.

2001

African-American, Chicano/Latino, Native American, and Asian-American/Pacific Islander Resource centers open up in Bay Tree building

2002

A group of students passed a referendum allocating funding to address UCSC’s low outreach and retention rates, and act as a vital hub for self and educational empowerment within the community. The ballot measure swept the Spring 2003 student elections with 69% of the vote, setting up "Engaging Education" or "E2"(more on this page *).

Santa Cruz City Council vocal on national/international issues:

1. First city to pass resolutions against US war on Afghanistan,

2. First city to oppose US war on Iraq.

3. Joins cities across the country in opposing the Patriot Act, and

4. Raises question of impeachment of G.W. Bush with House Judiciary Committee.

2003

On February 15th and 16th, 11 million people in 600 cities around the world made their opposition to a US invasion of Iraq known in the largest protest in history. Local activists joined 250,000 in San Francisco.

On the day after the war started, 20,000 people shut down San Francisco's business district with mass civil disobedience. Protesters targeted offices of companies such as Bechtel and the Carlyle Group who stood to make millions off of the war.

E2 center opens