The Social Experiment That Worked

Michael Martin as ECHS senior

By Michael K. Martin

I imagine becoming a seventh-grader was a big step for every sixth-grader in every school that fed into Portola Junior High in September, 1967. For me, it was both exciting and ominous.

The prospect of meeting new people by the dozens fascinated the socially curious lad I had become by the age of 12. One of the first extra-curricular activities in which I engaged was a run for president of the seventh grade class. I was beaten handily by Rob Williams, an immensely popular kid from Madera school, up the hill from Del Mar where I had cut my elementary-school teeth.

But my appetite for activities and popularity was indelibly whetted, and the nature of my secondary-school journey formed.

In 1967, after no small degree of controversy on what was then the Richmond Unified School Board, a decision was made on the issue then labeled “busing.” It was a nationwide movement that in some school districts was called “forced busing.” At any rate, its goal was greater racial integration in public school systems, which is why it was controversial.

In the Richmond school district, at Portola, this meant that in addition to the mostly white El Cerrito elementary schools -- Castro, Madera, Del Mar and others -- that had previously sent their students to Portola, students from mostly Black Richmond elementary schools -- Stege, Cortez, and Balboa and others -- would also be coming to Portola, and eventually El Cerrito High.  

According to students I’ve since talked to from both groups, conflict was anticipated.

In 1958, my family became the first Black family on the 900 block of Sea View Drive. That went for the 800 block of Sea View, and all the rest of Sea View, for that matter.

When I started at Del Mar, I was one of four Black students in a school of about 300. My older brother was one of the others. There was more than a little racial hostility.

But by second grade, as I recall, I had become part of what would now be termed a “posse.” I had a close group of seven or eight friends, all white except Ken Yamaoka and Doug Chin. We were in scouts together, went to summer camp together, played little league ball together.

This group served as kind of protective cocoon for me in those early days. As the Sixties progressed, more Black families moved to El Cerrito and I was joined by Ken and Carl Brown, Quinn and Pierre Reddrick, Janet Fowler, and maybe half-dozen other Black students at Del Mar.

The numbers of Black students from other El Cerrito schools advancing to Portola were similarly small. Where would I fit at Portola? I remember wondering, personally anticipating this anticipated conflict.

As noted above, I dived right in. It was 1967, a heady time worldwide, and a great time to be forging a persona. We in the Class of ’72 all started at Portola right after Haight-Ashbury’s Summer of Love, and two years after the formation of the Black Panther Party in Oakland.

The following year brought us the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the horrors of the Chicago Democratic Party Convention on live TV, and the election of Richard Nixon.

Things were similarly roiling at Portola Junior High, but more specifically about issues of dress codes, student press freedom, and racism. I found myself most active in student government, the human relations club, and the school paper.

In a school that was not racially polarized, but certainly organized socially along racial lines, I became part of a multi-racial, harmony-seeking crowd. We certainly thought ourselves to be socially aware.

 On the day after Dr. King’s assassination, the tension in the air at Portola was palpable. During my second-period math class, the teacher, Mrs. Johnston, locked the door and announced that anyone who walked out of her class in protest would receive an F for the day, and an F for every subsequent day that they would miss while awaiting her permission to be readmitted.

I looked at the other two Black students in the class. What was to be made of this? Shortly thereafter, in reaction to the beginnings of some sort of protest, the administration simply called school off for the day. Everyone was officially let go.

A significant group of self-appointed, self-aware students -- racially integrated and largely from the Human Relations club -- stayed on campus for impromptu discussions of the moment. We were cool. We were college-bound. We were socially aware. If the term had existed in those days, we would have been “woke.”

Upon rising to 9th grade, which Portola included in those days, I became student body president. I discovered girls, or rather, girls finally, finally discovered me. It was officially the first year of high school and everything seemed very nice.

Micheal Martin as student association president during the 1968-69 school year.

Real high school awaited down the street a few blocks, however, and September found me at El Cerrito High, a mighty Gaucho. Over the course of one short summer I was transformed from a Big Man on Campus into just a short guy without a car. High school was a big deal, and I was small potatoes.

The El Cerrito High School of the early 1970s was a fascinating place. Existing in the shadow of Cal’s campus amid some of the nation’s most significant social changes, El Cerrito High had a strong anti-establishment counter-culture. We were angry Black militants. We were angry anti-war protesters. We were hippies. We were druggies.

But we were also a high school. Pep rallies were a regular and popular occurrence on campus. Jocks and pom-pom girls held social power.

The Class of ’72 remains proud that our homecoming float won the competition every year. We had souped-up cars, and various spots on and off campus where various cliques gathered and nurtured themselves.

At the same time, change abounded. My parents became presidents of the first Parent Teacher Student Association. The office of ombudsman was created as a liaison between students, teachers, and the administration. What was then known as affirmative action meant that Black students would have chances at college like never before.

In 1972, Michele Jones was crowned Homecoming Queen at El Cerrito High School.

But being a Mighty Gaucho and holding the green and white high was still exceedingly hip. The El Cerrito/Berkeley football games continued to be held on Friday afternoons instead of Friday nights because the fierceness of school spirit often erupted into violence after dark.

Prior to our 40th reunion, the Class of ’72 put up a Facebook page. At the time, I thought Facebook, then in its halcyon days, would kill reunions. I mean, why would anyone fly in from wherever to catch up on a classmate, when on Facebook they could find out what that classmate had for dinner that night?

I was wrong. The Facebook page grew and grew. The reunion fed off of it and was a smashing success. It was during that reunion that I heard a classmate describe our class as a social experiment that really, really worked.

That the experiment worked was most immediately apparent by the reaction to the creation of the page itself. Within days, the Class of ’72 Facebook page was occupied by the same group of Gauchos who had pushed for change while building homecoming floats, who had attended peace rallies as well as pep rallies, who had experienced social interaction that sometimes roiled social discord, but who had loved one another nonetheless.

The success of that reunion was presaged by the success of the Facebook page.

The Class of ‘72 Facebook page played an even larger role this year, that of the 50th. In numbers exceeding 170, the Class of ’72 just celebrated that one at the end of September. The experiment appears to still be working.

Michael K. Martin is an attorney and a board member of the El Cerrito Historical Society. His father Jerry Martin was profiled in the March 2022 issue of the Forge. This article appeared in the December 2022 issue of the Forge.