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C H A P T E R F I V E “Makibaka! Dare to Struggle!” The IHTA and the KDP, 1977 Tenants Lead the Mass Movement STOP THE EVICTION! WE WON’T MOVE! STOP THE EVICTION! WE WON’T MOVE! Seven thousand people chanted as they circled the block of the International Hotel on Sunday, January 16, 1977, a day before the expected eviction. Swaying in unison like a giant snake, the crowd shouted in staccato bursts: “Stop the eviction! We won’t move! Stop the eviction! We won’t move!” A large portion of the demonstration was composed of African American families from San Francisco ’s Fillmore district who had been brought by Reverend Jim Jones’s People’s Temple church in several school buses.1 Dancing the rumba with hands on the hips of the demonstrator in front, the contingent from People’s Temple church infected the crowd with a carnival excitement. Jones, a rising star in San Francisco politics, had recently been appointed to the Housing Commission, and the two thousand people he brought from the Fillmore District—the largest single group ever to turn out for an I-Hotel demonstration—added considerable clout to the rally. Because it had such a large and active base, People’s Temple’s support was sought by politicians and movements throughout the city. No one anticipated the descent into megalomaniacal madness and mass suicide on which Jones would take himself and his followers in Guyana on November 18, 1978. Adding even more drama, Sheriff Richard Hongisto and Undersheriff James Denman had received contempt-of-court convictions six days earlier. California Superior Court Judge John E. Benson stayed the sentence for ten days to allow Hongisto and Denman to appeal to the California State Court of Appeal.2 Meanwhile , Judge Ira Brown’s order for eviction no later than 5:00 P.M. on January 19 was still in effect. Hongisto’s refusal to carry out the eviction and his sentence had alarmed the power structure, and negative editorials had begun to appear in the press. To appease critics, Sheriff Hongisto and Undersheriff Denman nailed a two-inch thick wad of eviction notices on the front door of the I-Hotel at 7:45 P.M. on January 11, timed within the January 19 deadline.3 This brought 2,500–3,000 supporters out to demonstrate in front of the hotel on January 12. The sheriff was still fighting his contempt citation, and he faced the prospect of jail time. As a politician who had been elected by the same coalition of progressive forces as Mayor Moscone, Hongisto knew that evicting poor, helpless tenants could tarnish his future career, but he also faced considerable threats from the political and financial elite and Democratic Party establishment. Hongisto had ambitions for higher office. Though the sheriff ultimately would capitulate, at this stage, the tenants and their supporters were astonished at his resistance to court orders, and he had become a hero in their eyes. They hoped that he would continue to defy the law, and he did eventually spend five days in the San Francisco County jail in San Bruno, starting on April 29, 1977.4 In addition to appealing to Hongisto personally at meetings, tenants and supporters calculated that the growing public sentiment opposed to the eviction would continue to sway him. Sympathetic local news media reported how the saga had tugged at the hearts of most San Franciscans: The International Hotel is the year’s cause célèbre. . . . The elderly Asian tenants who face eviction from their $50 a month rooms have gripped the sympathies of some Bay Area liberals and activists like nothing since the Vietnam War. Their battle—drawn as the fight between the “little guy” and a faceless, multinational corporation—has protest crowds as high as 5,000, the largest demonstrations since the anti-war movement of the late 1960s. . . . In San Francisco, where entire blocks of redevelopment area land stand vacant in the Fillmore and [S]outh of Market, the International Hotel is a symbol. A symbol of demolished low-rent housing: rising rents and neglected old people. And possibly, the symbol of a victory. If the hotel survives as a home for the poor, some supporters hope the city will begin to confront the urban ills they believe the International Hotel symbolizes.5 As public support for the tenants touched every corner of the city, tenant leaders became bold, and other tenants, such as...

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