By Jonah Raskin |
SONOMA COUNTY, California As Austinites and their friends and comrades all across Texas know, the coasts, east and west, often get more media coverage than the heartland, and that part of the U.S. often described, unfortunately, as “fly over country.” Fly over it and much is missed. Dozens of books and films tell the story of Berkeley in the Sixties. Also, a great deal has been written about the many demonstrations that shook the nation’s capital to protest against segregation and the War in Vietnam.
Not to explore and recount the movements that roiled towns and cities from Madison, Wisconsin to Austin, Texas, is to omit a crucial part of the story.
It s easy to get the wrong idea about Gary Gates when he s out scrounging in dumpsters, draining the leftover drops from beer cans and crushing them in his gloved hands.
Madison in the Sixties – In Memoriam, University of Wisconsin
The namesakes of two of the three South East dorms passed away this decade. Economics professor emeritus Edwin E. Witte, former department chair and namesake of the second southeast dorm, died May 20, 1960 at age seventy- three. Witte began his UW career as a teaching assistant in the history department, became an economics lecturer, and worked eleven years as head of the state’s Legislative Reference Bureau. He became a full professor of economics in 1933. Two years later, he was the principal author of the Social Security Act.
George C. Sellery, dean of the College of Letters and Science from 1919 to 1942, namesake of the first dorm, died on his ninetieth birthday, January 21, 1962. A scholar of Renaissance history, Sellery, came to Wisconsin for his doctorate at the invitation of the legendary historian Frederick Jackson Turner. An educational conservative, Sellery was acting president after the regents fired Pr
Madison, December 1969
Madison in the Sixties – December, 1969
December 2 A massive urban renewal project for the Miffland neighborhood runs into trouble at the Plan Commission, as area alderman Paul Soglin challenges plans for high-rise condo units. Soglin wants to rehab the existing housing stock through renovation and cooperatives rather than build new.
December 6–7 About seventy women students, TAs, young professionals, wives, and mothers attend the Women’s Liberation Conference at the University YWCA on Brooks St. Workshops include “The Psychology of Women,” “Women and Sex,” “Family Structure Alternatives,” “Women and Racism,” “Images of Women in the Mass Media,” “Women as Exploited Consumers,” “Jobs and Pay Structure for Women.”