Synopses & Reviews
During the Sixties the nation turned its eyes to San Francisco as the cityand#39;s police force clashed with movements for free speech, civil rights, and sexual liberation.and#160;These conflicts on the street forced Americans to reconsider the role of the police officer in a democracy. In
The Streets of San Francisco Christopher Lowen Agee explores the surprising and influential ways in which San Francisco liberals answered that question, ultimately turning to the police as partners, and reshaping understandings of crime, policing, and democracy.
The Streets of San Francisco uncovers the seldom-reported, street-level interactions between police officers and San Francisco residents and finds that police discretion was the defining feature of mid-century law enforcement.and#160;Postwar police officers enjoyed great autonomyand#160;when dealing with North Beach beats, African American gang leaders,and#160;gay and lesbian bar owners, Haight-Ashbury hippies, artists who created sexually explicit works, Chinese American entrepreneurs, and a wide range of other San Franciscans. Unexpectedly, this police independence grew into a source of both concern and inspiration for the thousands of young professionals streaming into the cityand#39;s growing financial district.and#160;These young professionals ultimately used the issue of police discretion to forge a new cosmopolitan liberal coalition that incorporated both marginalized San Franciscans and rank-and-file police officers. The success of this model in San Francisco resulted in the rise of cosmopolitan liberal coalitions throughout the country, and today, liberal cities across America ground themselves in similar understandings of democracy, emphasizing both broad diversity and strong policing.
Review
"Militant urbanist and writer, Chris Carlsson, has brought together a brilliant collection of essays by historians and memoirists of a neglected decade that reveal the originality and solidity of social movements which, despite tragic failures, have guaranteed that San Francisco would maintain a utopian vision of what is possible. Each contribution is a jewel, storytelling at its best." Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, author of A Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975
Review
"These bottom-up histories, written both by movement veterans and younger historians, provide a fascinating look at the ways people in a pivotal city shaped a pivotal decade. From hotel workers to cultural workers, college campuses to city streets, collective living to urban gardening, this book captures the sights, sounds and desires of a city in revolt. Its pages reveal the roots of our current struggles." --Dan Berger, editor of The Hidden 1970s: Histories of Radicalism
Review
"What a vivid, well-written tour through the wide range of community struggles and movements in this most political of American cities." --Chester Hartman, City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisc
Review
"Ten Years That Shook the City is a brilliant palimpsest of a time and a place: San Francisco in a revolutionary decade that changed just about every part of the city and everything about how we live today. This magnificent collection brings together voices from the cutting edges of feminism, gay liberation, Latino and Asian mobilizations, environmentalism, community housing and more, and proves once again what an extraordinary city we have the good fortune to inherit." --Richard Walker, Professor of Geography, University of California, and author of The Country in the City and The Conquest of Bread
Review
"Ten Years that Shook the City examines the early history of many of San Francisco’s cultural treasures that provide the bedrock for today's social change efforts. Written by people who were active in building the everyday institutions we now take for granted, the collection examines the radical democratic ethos that still permeates the city’s politics and cultural life. This is a vital resource, which provides the backstory for all of us who came to San Francisco because of its radical culture and politics." --Dorothy Kidd, Professor of Media Studies at the University of San Francisco
Review
"For anyone who lived through San Francisco's greatest years, the 1960s and 1970s, this book is a treasure-house of reminders, information and perspectives on what happens when a community really AWAKENS politically, ecologically and socially. No-one has ever done a better job of capturing this than Chris Carlsson in this book. For those who were not here, settle down and learn what the 60s-70s cultural revolution in the city may teach us about how we should deal with a difficult future. This is great reading for anyone." --Jerry Mander, author of Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
Review
"What did happen in the years following the storied 1960’s? Did political and social activism die away, move to the country, or get co-opted by the mainstream? Clearly not, as detailed in this new book of essays, edited by local community activist and historian, Chris Carlsson. Primarily first-person accounts, each chapter is chock full of stories from the front lines, written by participants who organized, agitated, and created social change in the city well into the 1970s and beyond. Currents run together from the anti-war and labor movements, gay and women’s liberation, struggles against redevelopment and racism and towards the building of cooperatives, ecological awareness, and political art and culture. Gathered together, these snapshots of activism tell a powerful story, showing how the groundwork was laid for much of the progressive movement that still exists today in San Francisco. The lessons of continuity are strong, with the foundations of many of today’s institutions and organizations rooted in the radical political and cultural movements from this time period."
--Susan Goldstein, City Archivist, San Francisco Public Library
Review
andquot;Ageeand#39;s nuanced perspective on city policing and on the evolving new political agenda of San Franciscoandrsquo;s political leadership fills a gap in our understanding of these years, and makes The Streets of San Francisco well worth reading.andquot;
Review
and#8220;Few historians have fully appreciated or analyzed the complicated role that the police have played in the making and unmaking of great American cities.and#160; But in this impressively researched and clearly written account, which takes into careful consideration both the discretion officers had and the pressures they faced, Agee shows convincingly how intertwined police practices and urban liberalism were in postwar San Francisco.and#160; From the Bay to the Breakers, the 1940s to the 1970s, he has ably documented how new notions of democratic citizenship and proper government emerged in response to street clashes between police officers and the diverse communities they served.and#160; The Streets of San Francisco represents a major contribution to the history of policing and politics in modern America.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;This is an insightful and bracingly original study of law enforcement and municipal politics.and#160; Agee tells a gripping, often surprising story of how San Francisco became the city it is today, and in the process he sheds new light on the ways that battles over policing influenced and reflected broader transformations of American urban life in the second half of the twentieth century.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Agee's powerful and innovative book demonstrates that urban liberalism played as vital a role as law-and-order conservatism in the transformation of policing and crime politics in modern America.and#160; In postwar San Francisco, police officers made public policy at the street level through corrupt and discretionary enforcement against stigmatized groups and cultural nonconformists such as bare-footed bohemians, gay bar patrons, provocative artists, antiwar hippies, youth gangs, and African American and#8216;vagrants.and#8217;and#160; By embracing the and#8216;harm principle,and#8217; white liberal reformers decriminalized cultural and sexual expression and restrained police discretion in majority-white enclaves while simultaneously institutionalizing stop-and-frisk tactics and repressive crime-fighting policies in black neighborhoods.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;The Streets of San Francisco offers a revealing look at the contradictory policing impulses of urban liberals in the second half of the twentieth-century. Caught between law and order on one side and emerging demands for racial and sexual pluralism on the other, liberals struggled to manage the complex apparatus of big-city police departments. With San Francisco as his focus, Agee tells this story in his unique and insightful voice.and#8221;
Review
andquot;A fascinating study. . . It provides an interesting and under-examined insight into the cultural dynamics of the andlsquo;60s and andlsquo;70s, revealing that the police were not just an enemy of social change, but were often as much a part of it as the social movements they faced down in the streets.andquot;
Review
andldquo;The history that Agee recounts offers important lessons for the current movement to rein in Americaand#39;s hyper-aggressive, overmilitarized police departments. In designing solutions, reformers must grapple not only with formal laws and policies, but also, and perhaps more importantly, with the welter of personal motives and workplace grievances that drive individual officersand#39; day-to-day decisions.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;The Streets of San Francisco is an interesting addition to the Historical Studies in Urban America Series . . . full of good discussions on big city policing. . . . andnbsp;Ageeandrsquo;s excellent discussion of the preeminent influence of the media and his linking of social issues and growth politics are his most important contributions.andrdquo;
Synopsis
A collection of essays spans the tumultuous decade from 1968, the year of the San Francisco State University strike, to 1978 and the twin traumas of the Jonestown massacre and the assassinations of mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. This volume provides a broad look at the diverse ways these ten years shook the city of San Francisco and shaped the world we live in today. From community gardening to environmental justice, gay rights and other identity-based social movements, anti-gentrification efforts, neighborhood arts programs, and more, many of the initiatives whose origins are described here have taken root and spread far beyond San Francisco.
Synopsis
The alliances, programs, and goals of a historic decade that continues to shape SF and the world.
Synopsis
During the 1950s and 1960s, San Francisco was transformed demographically, culturally, and politically. Navy shipbuilding and other waterfront work fueled the growth of many populations, including African Americans, gays, and lesbians. As a result, San Franciscoand#8217;s politics were likewise transformed. The old liberalism, grounded in notions of state welfare and business regulation, had been committed to ghettoizing black, gay, and bohemian populations; this gradually gave way to a more pluralistic form of and#147;modern liberalism,and#8221; as Agee calls it, which eventually came to define the city in the eyes of the world. In order to understand the evolving relationship between political elites and San Franciscoand#8217;s once-marginalized populations, Agee argues, we must take account of the government representatives with whom urban residents dealt the most: the police. Using oral histories and the personal papers of police officers, journalists, and everyday citizens to reveal the ways that individual personalities, values, and beliefs shaped community relations and politics, Agee explores how modern liberals and the police negotiated the concept of police discretion, developing a mutually beneficial relationship that shaped liberalism as we know it today.
Synopsis
For decades, the city of San Francisco has been nearly synonymous with the word and#147;liberal,and#8221; known for its diversity and acceptance, environmental activism, and thriving art scene. and#160;But this has not always been the case.and#160; Liberalism in San Francisco in the years right after World War II was mostly confined to notions of state welfare and business regulation. It wasnand#8217;t until the 1950s and 1960s, when new peoples and cultures poured into the city, that San Francisco produced a new liberal politics.
Christopher Lowen Agee details this fascinating transition inand#160;The Streets of San Francisco, focusing in particular on the crucial role the police played during this cultural and political shift.and#160; He partly attributes the creation and survival of cosmopolitan liberalism to the policeand#8217;s new authority to use their discretion when interacting with African American gang leaders, gay and lesbian bar owners, Haight-Ashbury hippies, artists who created sexually explicit works, Chinese American entrepreneurs, and a host of other postwar San Franciscans. In thus emboldening rank-and-file police officers, Agee shows, the city created partners in democratic governance. The success of this model in San Francisco resulted in the rise of cosmopolitan liberal coalitions throughout the country. Today, liberal cities across America ground themselves in similar understandings of democracy through an emphasis on both broad diversity and strong policing.
About the Author
Christopher Lowen Agee
Table of Contents
Introduction
1 and#8220;I Will Never Degrade the Spirit of Unityand#8221;:
Managerial Growth Politics and Police Professionalism
2 North Beach Beat:
Bohemians, Patrol Officers, and Cultural Pluralism
3 Gayola:
Gay-Bar Politics, Police Corruption, and Sexual Pluralism
4 and#8220;The Most Powerful Force in Manand#8221;:
Sexually Explicit Art, Police Censorship, and the Cosmopolitan Liberal Ascent
5 Leader of the Pack:
Gangs, Police Neglect, and Racial Pluralism
6 and#8220;If You Are Very Liberal toward Dissent, You Can Be a Little Bit Tougherand#8221;:
Cosmopolitan Liberalism and the Use of Force
7 and#8220;City Hall Can Be Beatenand#8221;:
Haight-Ashbury Activists, Rank-and-File Police, and a Cosmopolitan Localism
Conclusion
AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsNotesIndex