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football fields where a hostel could be set up for the kids to
crash. Since the size of the tent seemed so preposterous, they
didn't get it, and of course they naturally never thought of
hustling the bread for it themselves. The Haigllt Independent
Proprietors also created the HIP Job Co-op to locate employment
for those who wanted it. The trouble was that most of the jobs
available were for unskilled labor or office workers, and since
the kids had a better educational background and were white, they
took the openings away from the unemployed minorities. Even the
post office jobs promised to San Francisco's blacks during the
"riot" were given to the newly arrived hippies because
of their higher scores on the department's examinations. This
aroused the black and Chicano communities, causing friction and
animosity between them and the longhairs who began arrogantly to
consider themselves the "new niggers."
The apprehension generated by the approaching so-called Summer
of Love also led to the creation of three other organizations
which were regularly funded by proceeds from benefits, as were
all of the community's organizations, except the Diggers. The
first of these organizations was Happening House founded by
Leonard Wolf, a professor at S.F. State, who once pleaded to be
arrested during a naked dance recital by Jane Lapiner at the
Straight Theater on Haight Street, to publicize his solidarity
with the community. And he was. In fact, he was the only person
arrested, the coppers finding it difficult to refuse him, since
he kept insisting. Afterwards, he opened Happening House with a
few of his fellow academicians and they called it a
"community center," but it was really only a teaching
venture where faculty members from S.F. State taught classes, and
their college students planned artistic diversions for the
amusement of the kids who were flocking to the district.
Huckleberry House, the second organization, was as lame as its
name. It was started with money from the Glide Foundation which
also salaried the staff of ministers who operated it. It was
basically a referral center where some runaway kids would come
when they became disillusioned with the Haight-Ashbury. Their
parents would be notified, and the kids would be given room and
board for a couple of days, until their family made the necessary
arrangements for their return home. It was a nice, mild, safe,
responsible way for the church to become involved in
"hippiedom" and the hierarchy was probably glad that
the turnover at Huckleberry was as slight as [end page 288]
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