AUG. 17 Athe OB Historical Society presented: O.B. Activism in My Activist Youth, BY ROBERT BURNS, The presentation addressed O.B. activism of which I was aware or in which I was involved in the 1970s & 1980s. The focus is not on me but, rather, on that of which I was aware of sometimes with my involvement and sometimes only with my observation. Organizations and phenomena discussed encompass: Ocean Beach Planning Board, O.B. Free School, O.B. collectivism, O.B. Rock ‘n Roll bands, O.B. Tenants Union, Winchell’s opposition, Committee to Save Black’s Beach, C.E.A.N., O.B. C.R.A.B., O.B. People’s Food Store, Committee to Save Red House, Committee to Save Sunset Cliffs, and Friends of Famosa Slough.
Robert Burns grew up in Ohio where Lake Erie died, the Cuyahoga River caught fire,
forests were clear-cut, farms were strip-mined, and students were murdered at Kent State by the Ohio National Guard. Five- months of ill living within the Big Ag plume in Imperial Valley, he moved to O.B. to go to law school with a passion for organic produce. Life in O.B. presented a continuous variety of grassroots movements and causes; he was involved in quite a few particularly in the 1970s & 1980s. He became a lawyer in 1980 and for awhile used the legal system as a vehicle for grassroots.
Ocean Beach Historical Society 