21/11/2015 Witness

Hello, I'm Laura and welcome to a special additional witness here in

New York. This month we have five remarkable moments of American

history told by five people who were there. We will hear from a man who

helped broker a peace deal between helped broker a peace deal between

two Los Angeles gangs, surfing legend and a period of American

history that saw different sections of society fighting for their civil

rights. In the 1960s, black Americans all across the US were

demanding the same rights as white Americans. Witness has spoken to

scoring which had seen, the leader of the civil rights struggle in

Cambridge, Maryland. This is a picture, 1963, of us getting ready

to protest to the National Guard and they were telling us know. As he put

his bayonet towards me I pushed it away. In 1963 Cambridge Marilyn was

a segregated town. -- Maryland. The nice jobs went to white people. It

was just about unliveable in the 20th section. People wanted better

housing, they wanted the schools segregated, they wanted access to

better jobs and they wanted the hospital segregated. I was 40 years

old. The men in Cambridge asked me to be the spokesperson for the

movement. I consider that like soldiers in the army. This is

something you're supposed to do. We would always do the marching,

picketing and rallies and we weren't trying to get the enemy to love us

either. During the summer of 63 I think the Cambridge movement reached

its apex. All of that pent-up fury came out. It was like Civil War, the

black and whites were fighting hand-to-hand. People just were at

everyone's froze. The whites were tough, the blacks were tough, the

shooting at night was going on so bad between blacks and whites. When

the sun broke through at five or six o'clock in the morning, it was like

clouds of smoke. That's when the mayor asked National Guard -- asked

for the National Guard. They brought about 800 of them into town. I had

never seen men on street corners with guns and things. One day we

were lined up in the streets ready to march. I moved across the front,

the soldier proceeded to put his bayonet and position it's like he

was going to charge me. I don't remember making up my mind, he's

going to stab me and I'm going to push this bayonet. My position on

violence and nonviolence, I've always believed if they came and

attacked you had a right to respond. I guess in retrospect we were

radical, and certainly they thought we were crazy. At a certain point

there was so much gunfire that the federal Government thought they

needed to bring an immediate end. We went to Washington for

negotiations. After five or six meetings we signed a Christian -- we

signed the Treaty of Cambridge, which meant original commands to

segregating the school -- desegregating the schools, building

housing, desegregating the hospital and making more jobs available. I

guess their hands were forced. They had to do that. It did feel like a

victory. I'm 92 years old and I don't think I have changed my

attitude. Things will change if you fight hard enough for them. Gloria

Richardson, a lifelong civil rights campaigner. In August 1970 on the

city thousands of American women went on strike to demand equal

and told us how the experience and told us how the experience

shaped the rest of her life. I made myself a vow. That was it, my life

thrilling feeling, still to this thrilling feeling, still to this

moment it gives me the -- gives me goose bumps. Your role as a woman

was pretty much, you got married. That was it. Then you played Mamie

or grand money. That was it. The jobs for women were only secretary,

stenographer, collect, you could not get credit in your own aim. In

buyers are used to put up that it was men only. This was all legal. I

was working for the American stock exchange at that time and a couple

of women in the office, there was only a few of us. Virtually we saw

it in the newspaper about women having a march free quality and said

that is interesting, so I showed up the next day. 10,000 militant

feminist stage a one-day strike for equal rights. They demand job

quality, free abortions and free you child care centres for working

mothers. They believe they will get nothing without a fight. At the

start of the day we went to the city going to various demonstrations and

handing out flyers. Join us now at! We started seeing thousands of women

coming off the side streets and we were looking, where were they coming

from? We were thrilled that we had 50 women. Incredible signs women

make themselves. There was a line of police on horses with riot sticks

and helmets pulled down, they were not going to let us out of the park

so when the women in front of a yield of March, forget about the

police, start marching and don't stop, the search word for word. They

had to step aside or get trampled, I guess. We took over the Avenue and

we were yelling at the people in front, move on! I read Brave Doctor

got down on one knee to take a picture and we just move over him.

The people on the side bar -- sidewalk were booing prior to that

and they started cheering and was exhilarating. It was now 5pm and

people were coming out of the buildings and the streets filled

with thousands of people between us, the estimate some was 30,000 to

50,000. We turned into 41st St and on the right there was some

scaffolding and work being done the public library on the second level

and we climbed up there with the women of the world unite banner and

unfurled it and dropped it over the side so everyone in the streets

below could see and they put their face in the air and you have this

sea of women yelling in quality. It was incredible.

It has worked because it has worked because it's put agenda and has

shown as our power to achieve it. I thought never again will I spew his

examination again. Never again will I stand by and allow it to happen to

other women. It is like being let out of a prison or something and

being exonerated for a crime he did not commit. It was just, wild. I

went home and felt I was bouncing on clients all the way home. My life

completely changed from that day on. I found other women that felt the

same. We worked together, mainly through the National organisation

for women to make change and we went forward and we were very happy to

say, I am a woman. Carol does Iran there. In that same month on the

other side of the country, 45 years ago, thousands of Mexican-Americans

were marched against the Vietnam War in Los Angeles. People just became a

defining moment for the Latina community in the US. We were dying

at twice the rate and heavily more a part of the military then are

proportion in the population. We were Mexican-Americans and Latinos

and others that were faced with the same kind of discrimination. That is

why we had to start our own anti-war movement. We organised

demonstrations that would come to a head with the national demonstration

in East LA. There were older people, but so many young people. People

were joining, coming in off the sidewalks, it was almost like a

moving fiesta. The march ended at Laguna Park and there we were going

to have a programme where I would open it with a speech. We are a

proud people with a proud culture. Before the world, before all of

North America, before all our brothers from the continent, we are

a nation! There was a commotion and it began very quickly and you could

see the sheriffs moving people, pushing people. Others began to push

back and they pushed the sheriffs away. In the front there was lots of

older people, children and others, families sitting in the front. They

were getting squeezed out. The sheriffs came back with more and

more clubs and they pushed back a little and they came back again and

the tear gas starts coming. My friend says to me, they can do

anything they want in this chaos. Get someone you know in the crowd

and have them get you out of here. That's what I did. The police throw

people out of the park, pushing people, beating people. We found out

that there was a gas station opened up a false tribute to wipe the

device out of their eyes and there was a line, the sheriffs came in and

started beating people. People started throwing rocks at the

sheriffs. Fires came up, there was some looting. Tremendous anger. 100

and something people arrested, scores injured. We found out that

three people had died, including Salazar, our main journalist, her

voice to the country is not the world. It was a tremendous loss. The

police said they had to control the situation, they had to move out all

those thousands of people. They said there were incidents, and there were

some incidents, we controlled them. That day, to Canada said we were

going to be a voice in this country and we no longer wanted to accept a

second-class status. He spent his whole life campaigning for the

Mexican American cause. You can watch winners every month on the BBC

News channel or you can catch up on over 1000 radio programmes in our

online archive, just go to BBC .co UK/witness. In Los Angeles the

Bottomley Crippes have been engaged in a deadly rivalry for decades. In

1992 killer show reels brokered peace deal that brought the two

sworn enemies together. Angus town here getting together. I grew up in

what's in Los Angeles. In LA County alone over the past 30 years it's

claimed more than 25,000 lives. It was a literal war zone. I had one of

my partners get cut in half with an AK-47 and we found his body in a

phone booth on the way to school in the morning. Black gangs started in

south-central Los Angeles. The average with one of two rival

confederations, the Crippes, who were blue, and the bloods, who were

read. You have to be really careful about what colour you wore when you

were in neighbourhoods, shoestrings, belts, you could literally lose your

life for wearing the wrong colour in the wrong place. I can kill about 32

people if I had them all. This is the same thing. I own two of these.

Fortunately I never stabbed or killed anyone. Fortunately. I got

accepted college and conceptualised this idea that we have to stop the

didn't want to lose my life over didn't want to lose my life over

this stuff. I felt like spirit had something bigger in store for my

life. I went back to the neighbourhood and I started a little

group. We had this idea to bring rival grinds together and started

hosting these meetings every Wednesday night. Some of the

get killers in the same room who get killers in the same room who

have harmed each other and have traded bodies. You can imagine. It's

intense. It took us about four years and although everyone agreed that

this is good, there was still no going in each other's neighbourhood.

April 28, 1992 we decided we had to test it because it's more than just

having a conversation, people have to see it on the ground. A group of

to the bureau Court housing projects to the bureau Court housing projects

and pulled in front of their gym and I swear everything froze. People

just stopped. Like... We were like, this is real, we're trying to stop

the killing. We are asking them and they said we went. No conflicts, no

problems. The peace treaty was on. That moment, I'm telling you, man,

it was like... Just, paradise. Just like everyone started getting on the

phone, calling their families and friends. We celebrated all night

because you're talking about 30 years of not being able to go in

each other's neighbourhood and suddenly this thing is wide open.

For real. A attention to this. The first two years of the peace

treaty, 92-94, gang homicides dropped 44%. Grandmothers began to

walk the streets, kids playing in the park. Many men became fathers to

their children for the first time. We created an entire grass roots

sports Federation to strengthen the peace treaty and bring rival --

rival gangs together so they would know which other. Thousands of

people would come to the games and support. One of the things you have

to know is that people love intensity and hate fiercely. When

it's good, is the best you can possibly imagine. It was the heyday,

we were rocking out. Achille Shirelles is still campaigning

against gang violence in LA. Firm final film, just off the picturesque

coastline of Northern California lies an area known as mavericks were

deadly waves crash onto nearby rocks. For a long time no one

thought they could be served. Jeff Clarke was the first to attempt

them. I grew up on the beach in Northern California one mile away

from mavericks. In the 70s, there was nothing going on here except

farming and I became so enamoured with the ocean. I started surfing at

nine years old and I served every milk and cranny on this coast. Those

rocks are the rocks as mavericks. Beyond those rocks you will find

demanding technical giant dangerous demanding technical giant dangerous

waves on the planet. Can you imagine a four-storey building coming at you

at 30 miles per are? And all of a sudden it hits the curve and topples

over on top of you. That's what it's like as mavericks. In these everyday

is the main challenge I had was trying to find somebody to serve it

with me. There was nobody up for surfing it. It is breaking in front

of rocks that stick out of the water 20 feet and I started to watch it

and study it. Eventually in 1975 I felt like I had the ability to go on

served by myself. When that wave came I turned and I was totally

committed, head down, pulling water as hard as I could. I starts to feel

that acceleration down the face of the wave and a shadow of that wave

standing up behind me, and just going down the face of the wave and

cringing, trying to maintain speed out run this thing as it is coming

down and the explosion right on my heels. And I made it. I got away.

After I served mavericks the first time, I drove around three years --

three years trying to bury people's years, dragging them out there. The

big wave riders. They didn't believe it waves like this existed. In

California. Eventually we saw an influx of surfers. December 1994 I

hear that mark food and some of the premier big wave riders from Hawaii

were coming to mavericks. Mark was catching waves and I paddle up to

him and said, Mark, what you think? And he goes, I never imagined was

this big of a wave. I was so stoked. Later on in Mayday came over

the loudspeaker in the harbour. This week the power of the world

California ways has been a magnet for servers from all over the world.

Tonight one of the very best, Mark Foo, has died. I did feel

responsible. This was kind of like my baby. Opening it up to the

do the whole time. Now to have such do the whole time. Now to have such

a tragic event happen. His beautiful spirit smiled. That brought so much

variety to mavericks. Just survive it you would have to treat death.

Marco Fu said you have to be willing to pay the ultimate price for the

ultimate thrill. Jeff Clark speaking to win is right next to the ways he

knows so well. That is nicked from me and the team here in New York for

this special edition of winners. Don't forget what -- to watch Tanya

Beckett later in the month, she will be at the British library imagine

bringing new five witnesses come more history through the eyes of

left it. That is it for now. Goodbye and thank you for watching. -- the

eyes that lived it.