UCLA Student Rampage of 1966 Shuts Down the San Diego Freeway (I-405 Northbound)
News Items for November 22, 1966
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As luminescent debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle rains down on Earth, the Leonids Meteor Shower ends its first intense display in sixty-six years.
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A USSR chess program begins a correspondence match with the USA Kotok-McCarthy MIT chess program, in the first game of chess ever played between two computers.
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Defense analysts inform the Lyndon Johnson Administration that the U.S. might have underestimated the strength of Vietnamese communist irregular forces (Viet Cong) by up to 200,000 persons.
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In China, Chairman Mao authorizes a seventeen member Central Cultural Revolutionary Committee, with his secretary Chen Boda as chairperson and Mao’s wife Jiang Qing as first vice-chairwoman.
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It is the third anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy, as well as the arrest of suspect Lee Harvey Oswald and confirmation of Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 36th president of the United States.
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University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Today students marched from their Westwood campus to the San Diego Freeway (Interstate I-405) and twice in two hours, achieved closure of all four northbound lanes.
On July 14, 2011, as the impending three-day closure of the I-405 Freeway known as Carmageddon loomed, Los Angeles Times sportswriter Jerry Crowe blogged, “To the idea of shutting down the San Diego Freeway on the Westside, as will happen this weekend, a group of former UCLA students can say, “Been there, done that.”In November 1966, as The Times reported under the headline, “UCLA RAMPAGE,” thousands of students stormed off campus. Initial disbelief turned into a disorganized, but effective protest of UCLA's surprising Rose Bowl snub in favor of USC. Twice, students marched onto the freeway and briefly stopped northbound traffic. On that Tuesday, only days after backup quarterback Norman Dow (in his first and only start) led the Bruins to an upset of USC at the Coliseum, The Times reported, obscenity-shouting protesters “left a trail of shocked and bewildered spectators.”
The year 1966 was my first at UCLA and watching our underdog Bruins vanquish Troy was epic. To Bruin fans, the L.A. Coliseum felt like its counterpart in ancient Rome. After the victory, we left the Coliseum chanting “Rose Bowl, Rose Bowl”.
Major Leonids Meteor Showers occur in thirty-three year cycles. Major closings of the I-405 are rarer still, with this one happening forty-six years later. Since 1998, the Rose Bowl has vaporized like a comet into the mind-numbing Bowl Championship Series (BCS). In January 2011, the TCU Horned Frogs played the Wisconsin Badgers at the Rose Bowl. Only the teams, their diehard fans and inveterate sports bettors know who won that game. Rather than being about geography, history and proud tradition, the Rose Bowl somehow morphed into a financial institution. Whether it is in support of sports betting or cold cash for the Tournament of Roses, it is all about the money now. Still, motorists on the I-405 can rest easy about a recurrence of the “UCLA Rampage” of 1966. Thanks to the BCS, it is unlikely that a victory in any future UCLA vs. USC game will affect commuters as they trundle up Sepulveda Pass toward The Valley. Will anyone in that line of cars chant, "Go Horned Frogs, go".
On the afternoon of November 22, 1966, word got out on campus that UCLA “had been robbed” of their Rose Bowl berth. Almost immediately, spontaneous demonstrations started on campus. Using tiredness as my excuse, I declined my friend Leonard’s fervent invitation to join the demonstrations. Instead, I studied for a while and then fell asleep on an unmade bed in my dorm room.
In the early afternoon, a call to action swept through campus, with students yelling, “To the freeway. Shut it down”. After the I-405 freeway closure, bonfires had flared into the night at campus demonstrations against the oh-so-important Rose Bowl berth. Near midnight on November 22, 1966, Leonard came crashing into my room, still red-cheeked and sweaty from a long run uphill to the dorm. Today, Leonard is a distinguished college math instructor and a published author. That night, as I listened to his story, I wondered whether he had been one of the provocateurs.
In the glare of afternoon sun, startled northbound motorists saw hundreds of young people chanting along the side of the freeway. Soon after their arrival, demonstrators began flagging down anyone who would stop. In the interest of safety, traffic slowed, and then one driver came to a halt in the slow lane. Lane, by lane, the budding anarchists proceeded, until all four northbound lanes of the I-405 freeway came to a complete stop. Soon, highway patrol and LA Police arrived, threatening to arrest anyone who did not disperse. Like a school of fish, the crowds dispersed, and then reformed and retook the freeway. As more LAPD reinforcements arrived, officers with bull horns herded the crowd back to Wilshire Blvd. and then followed them on their long walk home.View I-405 Shutdown Map in a larger map
In my dorm room that night, Leonard was exultant. Mobs could rule. People had power. He had been part of something bigger than himself, even if it was an anarchistic mob. In an act of benevolent avoidance, my higher self had gently put me to sleep for the duration of events. In that early version of what we now call a “flash mob”, there were no arrests or criminal charges filed. With impending wide scale protests against the Vietnam War, future demonstrations across the country were often less peaceful.
With the benefit of forty-seven years of reflection, I believe that something important happened at both the UCLA Rampage and the more recent I-405 Carmageddon closures. Despite the divergent reasons for the closures, in each a bridge captured the public imagination. In 2011, California spent millions to topple half of a bridge, simply to add a carpool lane to the northbound side. In 1966, students discovered an energy bridge to their own future. Did stardust energy from Comet Tempel-Tuttle assist them in their peaceful, if raucous closing of the I-405?
Dec. 4, 2012 - Reader Tom Conerly's comment:
Thanks for posting the I-405 freeway photo from 1966. I searched for it to show my son in law. However, you might want to expand your blog...it was not just student unrest. After the announcement picking USC for the Rose Bowl, a bunch of us from Trojan Hall decided to do a victory lap, along UCLA's fraternity row.
I was in the back seat of my roommate's Chevy Malibu SS 396 holding a speaker out the window, blasting the USC fight song. Behind us were at least 20 cars full of USC red and gold. As we made our second lap, hundreds of guys flooded out of the fraternities and chased us down Wilshire Boulevard. I remember running at least two red lights and barely escaping.
Later after being radicalized, I did my best to "burn down USC", and married a UCLA girl, but that day in Westwood still stands out. All I mean from “burn down” was that I quickly lost any rah rah feelings for USC. I spent a lot of time at UCLA (Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee on the Janss Steps at noon for free) and always liked it there.
See if you can find a pic of another of my seared memories-the 500 cop cars parked on the hill by the dorms in 1970.
Dec. 4, 2012 - Jim McGillis' Response:
Perhaps you are referring to the afternoon that fire alarms sounded almost simultaneously at Dykstra, Sproul, Rieber and Hedrick residence halls. Every police cruiser and fire truck in West Los Angeles headed for the dorms. There was so much apparatus on the streets that they created their own traffic jam. When first responders arrived, nothing was amiss, except for the sabotaged fire alarms.
If we both recall the same episode, I wrote about that in my eBook. To keep the riff-raff out, I charge $.99 for the book. If you are not completely satisfied, the book has a 101% money-back guarantee. Ha!
Although I will not disclose my sources, I knew both of the fire-alarm commandos. Although no one asked me to participate, I did little to discourage those who did. When four alarms sounded, the dispatchers at police and fire headquarters gave us everything that they had. Their heroic, yet futile response left me with an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Today, we might refer to such an act as domestic terrorism. Had the plot unraveled, there would have been several expulsions from UCLA that year, perhaps including me. How long is the statute of limitations on a crime like that?
During the Radical 1960’s, many of us perpetrated antisocial acts against the institutions around us, sometimes even our schools. Looking back on it, there is no excuse for such antisocial activities.
