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Antiwar Demonstrations at the Santa Barbara Airport
In May of 1972, Carpenter faced perhaps his most difficult decision up to that point in office, especially given the role that the antiwar demonstrations of 1970 had played in his election.
A rally of more than 7,000 people had materialized around noon
on campus on the lawn leading down to the lagoon behind the UCen
following some action by the Nixon-Kissinger team. I think it
was a restart of bombing of North Vietnam, but I don't remember
the details any more.
After the speakers finished, people rose from the audience to
recommend what concrete step should be taken in response to the
bombing. Most suggestions were politely ignored or laughed off.
Finally, Jim Gregory, then a writer for the Santa Barbara News
& Review, made a suggestion that immediately rang true. He suggested
that everyone march to the Santa Barbara Municipal Airport and
sit-in on the runway as a symbolic protest to the U.S. air attack.
People nodded, began clapping, and turned to each other saying,
"Yes! That's it!"
I've never seen such a spontaneous agreement on the part of a
large crowd--outside of a sporting event.
The march started immediately. At least 4,000 people walked up
Los Carneros Road, turned east on Hollister Avenue and onto the
airport runway. The crowd was warned by airport authorities to
leave immediately, but no one paid attention to them. Someone
gathered some logs and a bonfire was started in the middle of
the runway. The crowd was chanting the anti-war slogans of the
time: "The People, united, will never be defeated,"
and my personal favorite: "Two-Four-Six-Eight--Nixon Eats
Shit."
After about an hour, a big yellow school bus filled with police
pulled onto the airport grounds. A jeep appeared, with Carpenter
at the helm, and began circling the runway that held the demonstrators.
With a huge megaphone, Carpenter shouted that everyone should
leave within five minutes or he would "clear the area."
While no one knew exactly what "clearing the area" meant,
it sounded pretty painful to this demonstrator.
Suddenly a dozen black and white police cars appeared at the end of the runway, perhaps a half-mile away from the crowd. As they began driving slowly toward us, the heat from their engines invoked a wavy hallucination.
At least half the people--being mostly sane--jumped up and fled
back toward Hollister Ave. I don't mind admitting that I moved
from my seat in the center of the crowd over toward the edge of
the people that remained. But, at least 2,000 people held strong
on the runway, which gave me enough courage to sit back down.
As the black and whites got about half way up the runway toward
us, Carpenter called them off. He wasn't going to have his men
attack this crowd of unarmed demonstrators.
He had given us the runway.
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