The Gang of Four. Bob Santos
Workers Association (UCWA) dramatized the plight of Black workers battling to close down construction sites all over King County because of their racist, exclusion of African Americans from decent paying jobs in the construction industry. UCWA was composed of very tough and mostly unemployed Black construction
workers. They struggled for four long years (1968-1972) with hundreds of them (and us) going to jail, before the federal court, in the fall of 1972, issued a court order requiring white contractors and unions to affirmatively hire Black workers.
I believe the reader will be able to form an excellent picture of how challenging it was for us to weave together, such an amazing,
iv
multi-racial coalition of dedicated warriors, who fought so bravely for social change and political empowerment for oppressed and disadvantaged people wherever they resided.
As I close out my introduction to this great book, I want to tell you that everywhere the four of us traveled around the country and internationally, we were always asked to tell the story of the “Gang of Four.” In each place we visited, activists and revolutionaries were inspired by and loved the organizing successes they heard us describe. We’ve garnered great respect from a wide range of folks --they tell us, we can sense “your love for the people you serve, your love for one another, and your love for being leaders in the causes you have taken up.”
In defining our essence, people have often referenced the caption over the great painting of the “Gang of Four” done by renowned Black artist, AL Doggett.
The caption simply reads, “The Power of Unity.”
A Luta Continua,
Larry Gossett
v
vi
I was very fortunate to be living in Oakland, California and to attend San Francisco State College in the latter 1960s. It was then that the civil rights and anti-war movements were peaking in the Bay Area. Community activism, particularly among students, was surging even amid the hippie counter-culture scene.
At San Francisco State, I attended every noon rally during the student strike in 1968 and joined other students in boycotting classes. The strike lasted five months and was led by the Third World Liberation Front. While the coalition was led by the Black Students Union (the first such in the country), it included Chicano American, Chinese American, and Native American student groups.
I was very glad with the unity of racial groups and equally impressed with their principle of “self-determination,” which dictated that racial minorities make their own decisions, and determine their own destiny without others (i.e. whites). Of course, I completely agreed with their demands, which included the establishment of ethnic studies programs, increased enrollment of minority students, hiring of more minority faculty, financial aid and program support for minority students. I was elated when the administration finally gave in to these just demands. It showed me what could be accomplished when racial groups unite for causes that provide mutual benefits to each group.
However, when I returned to Seattle in the early 1970s, it appeared to me that there was not much networking nor organized efforts to get racial groups working together.
Back in the late 1940s, there was the multi-racial Jackson Street Community Council, which was established to bridge differences between racial groups and to improve the economic and physical conditions in what is now called the Chinatown/International District and much of the Central Area. That area was largely a racial enclave where many of the African Americans and Asian Americans resided at the time. The Council, which was funded by United Good Neighborhood (which later became United Way), has been credited with some success as a community action organization since it was able to get the “ear” of the City officials, managed to pass some ordinances dealing with blight in the neighborhood, and brought about racial harmony in the city.
In the sixties, however, the Jackson Street Community Council gave way to the more powerful and compelling civil rights movement that gripped the nation. It also gave way to racial and ethnic nationalism, and conflict. Many Asian Americans and others fled the Central Area as many younger Blacks protested and rebelled against others in their struggle for equality and “Black Power.”
But as the civil rights movement progressed, there was a growing segment of the population that acknowledged America’s history of discrimination and prejudice towards African Americans and sympathetic to their struggle for equal rights, treatment, and opportunity. They included a growing segment of Asian Americans, Latino American, and Native Americans, who recognized that they too were minorities, that they were also secondary citizens and objects of racial discrimination and prejudice. They too wanted to become involved in the civil rights movement and to expand it to their own to bring attention to their own problems and issues.
Subsequently, each community of color more or less established their own movement and went their own separate way to improve their lot and to meet their needs.
Clearly, racial unity is Seattle had a long way to go when I returned to Seattle in 1972. I lived with my parents at the Beacon Hill Junction upon my return.
Coincidentally, the Asian Drop-In Center was located at the house next door and the old Beacon Hill Elementary School was just across the street. So I got to know a number of the Asian American student activists, who were engaged in the Chinatown-International District and the King County domed stadium issue and got involved with the Third World Coalition, who met at El Centro de la Raza (old Beacon Hill Elementary School).
I connected with the members of the Gang of Four shortly after my return to Seattle. I got to know Bob Santos, who had just became director of the International District Improvement Association (Inter*Im) at the time, and after attending some board meetings, I became a member of the board of that agency.
I met Roberto Maestas and Larry Gossett through the Third World Coalition. The Coalition became involved in a number of issues around Puget Sound, including Indian Fishing Rights, the domed stadium and the preservation of the International District, the grape boycott and the struggle of the United Farm Workers, Chicano Studies, jobs for minority youth, construction jobs for minorities, the acquisition of El Centro, city funding for minority programs, and a lot of other causes affecting communities of color.
Bob, Roberto and Larry and others all joined Tyree Scott and the United Construction Workers in closing down a number of public construction sites in the area because of the lack of minority workers on those jobs. I did not meet Bernie Whitebear until some time later, but knew of his fight to secure land for urban Native Americans at what was Fort Lawton and now called Discovery Park, and to secure the old Sick’s Seattle Stadium.
Roberto, Bob, Larry and Bernie...each of them developed effective agencies that not only provides a comprehensive range of needed services and programs, but also organizations that became powerful voices for their respective communities. At the same time, each of them maintained their relentless fight for social and economic justice. When they began supporting each other and collaborating, they became the “Gang of Four’ or the “Four Amigos,” a dynamic Third World force. Together, the unity of communities of color coming together to determine their own destiny.
Each of them have left an indelible mark on Seattle and beyond as this book so compellingly describes. Each will go down in history among Seattle’s prominent civil rights leaders, joining the likes of Chief Sealth, Horace Cayton, Gordon Hirabayashi, Wing Luke, and Tyree Scott. Already there have been streets, buildings, and housing projects named after each of them.
We