The Badger Herald: News: Former students give party’s protest history

News

Former students give party’s protest history

Attendees of initial event say ‘Miffland’ was radical symbol

KARI FISCHER/Herald photo

David Williams of Madison recounts the origin of the Mifflin Street Block Party at a local café.

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Also by Julie Strupp:

Former students give party's protest history (May 3, 2009)
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City officials split over plan to raze old homes (April 21, 2009)
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City raises meter fees (April 14, 2009)

By Julie Strupp
Sunday, May 3, 2009 11:09 p.m.

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A presentation at Electric Earth Café Friday showed how the Mifflin Street Block Party has changed significantly since its beginnings on May 1, 1969, moving from a political protest to an apolitical drinking event.

Madison activist David Williams celebrated May Day with a presentation of the political and social climate at the University of Wisconsin through the years that led to the creation of the present-day Mifflin Street Block Party.

“The event was political in a cultural and social sense,” Williams said. “The government wanted to show a bunch of hippie radicals they didn’t have as much freedom as they thought.”

A year or so before the first Mifflin event, the university changed housing regulations, which allowed students to live off-campus and in non-university housing Williams said. Some began a co-op on Mifflin which became the center of the student anti-war movement in the area.

Williams said in the late 1960s, Madison community members viewed the Mifflin Street area, which was dubbed “Miffland,” as a “radical, hippie” neighborhood.

According to Williams, who took part in the first Mifflin event, tensions between UW students, UW officials and Madison police officers from previous campus protests led to violence between police and students.

Since the city did not grant students a permit to host a block party on Mifflin Street, the Madison Police Department was sent to break up the event, Williams said.

However students were angered by the aggressive tactics police used to end the riot, which included beating students, using tear gas and arresting students, Williams added. The brawl lasted for several days.

“By June of 1969, Mifflin Street had become a radical symbol,” Williams said. “The [Mifflin Street] area was sort of a source of fascination for local powers that be.”

According to Williams and other early Mifflin participants, the violence forced the Madison community to re-examine the actions taken by the city and MPD, which led to a drastic improvement in the relations between students and cops.

“I was certainly impressed with the police action I saw on State Street with Halloween revelers when I came here in 2004 compared to what I saw on Miffland,” Williams said.

Musician Aarick Beher, who began attending the event a few years after it began, said Mifflin gradually changed from a political protest to a music-centered event, adding the block party began to feature a wide variety of music and student bands.

“The politics have gone away, but the music didn’t go for a while,” Beher said.

Madison resident Gretta Wing Miller, who attended the early Mifflin block parties, said in the 1960s students used to smoke more marijuana and drink less alcohol during the event.

Miller said the Mifflin Street Block Party has become de-politicized and many students today do not know the events’ radical roots.

This year, for the first time since 1995, the Mifflin Street Block Party was granted a sponsor. However, Williams said the event lost a lot of its meaningful edge.

“It’s kind of ironic that an event that started out as a protest against local government powers is now being sponsored,” Williams said.

5 Comments | Leave a comment

Anonymous | May 4, 2009 11:37 AM | Reply

Ahh when cops could beat hippies indiscriminately. Those were the days….

Anonymous | May 4, 2009 2:36 PM | Reply

if only the cops started beating up bros and hipsters just for being stupid

Anonymous | May 4, 2009 6:54 PM | Reply

or cops would find doofus’ who posted mean stuff and pepper spray them til they choked.

Anonymous | May 5, 2009 9:04 AM | Reply

Damn, I wish I had known this guy was speaking! I totally would have gone to listen to him. Also, I wish I went to the UW in the late 60s.

Anonymous | May 5, 2009 6:57 PM | Reply

I think that I was on the Badger bus in the 70’s and it went down Mifflin. Some old lady behind me was saying it looks like the ghetto. I turned and said “Ya, the student ghetto”. - LOL.