“Peace with Justice”: Bishop Mark J. Hurley and the San Francisco State College Strike

Abstract

For almost fifty years, a tale has been told about the student strike at San Francisco State College from November 6, 1968 to March 21, 1969. According to this story, the strike ended in success, with the establishment of what became the first School of Ethnic Studies in the nation, because of the bravery of Black and Third World student radicals, support from Bay Area communities of color, and assistance by radical white student and faculty sympathizers. This strike story has dominated historical writing about the Black Studies campus movement, and it has become institutionalized local lore, celebrated by the media as well as by San Francisco State University. This narrative should be revised and replaced with another, more fully-informed account of what really happened during the longest such campus event in United States history. In this revised history, major credit for the positive outcome of the strike must go to a staunch white liberal Catholic racial justice advocate, Auxiliary Bishop Mark J. Hurley (1919–2001). Hurley’s vision and his persistence as a mediator allowed him to limit violence on the campus during the strike and to facilitate a positive settlement of the strike.