Dave Lyons:  

Well, what a long strange trip it's been! I haven't ventured too far geographically from the Sunset district - moving to Oakland to get away from the fog - I've moved a ways to the left following the turbulent 60's and 70's. Outside of my brother Jim and I being constantly asked, "Which one are you?', I was pretty quiet in high school. I ran Cross Country and track in my senior year, and the closest I got to the football field was working the chains along the sidelines at a few games. I always liked history and politics - my favorite teacher was Papa Sidney Gottfried. I was inspired by Mr Schmidt's Law class and planned to go to law school to defend working people against the evil corporations. I went to City College and UC Berkeley, getting a BA in Economics in 1976. A lot of the world changed between high school and my 20's, and I was part of it. It started with the McGovern Grassroots in 1972 and moved on to SDS and a group called International Committee Against Racism (InCAR) at UC. We fought the academic racism of people like William Shockley and Arthur Jensen - even taking over Jensen's class and giving him a dunce cap before the cops kicked us out. The defining action in my life was spending two months in Boston in the summer of 1975, building multi-racial unity in a city racked with racist violence against black youth and their parents during the integration of the schools there. it was very intense, sort of like the Freedom Summers of the 1960's in the South. After being arrested with 16 other people f...Expand for more