The Diggers was a radical community-action and guerrilla-theater group from 1966-68, based in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Their politics was such that it has sometimes been categorized as "left-wing," but more accurately they were "community anarchists" who blended a desire for freedom with a consciousness of the community in which they lived. Categories: US geography stubs | San Francisco neighborhoods ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ...

Origins

The Diggers took their name from the original English Diggers (1649-50) who had promulgated a vision of society free from private property, and all forms of buying and selling. The mid-'60s San Francisco Diggers opened stores, fed people, organized concerts as works of political art. Some of their happenings include the Death of Money Parade, Intersection Game, Invisible Circus, and Death of Hippie/Birth of Free. Woodcut from a Diggers document by William Everard The Diggers were a group, begun by Gerrard Winstanley as True Levellers in 1649, who became known as Diggers due to their activities. ...

The group was founded by Emmett Grogan, Peter Coyote, Peter Berg, and other members of the San Francisco Mime Troupe including Billy Murcott, La Mortadella, and Butcher Brooks. Emmett Grogan was one of the founders of the Diggers in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, California who inspired Abbie Hoffman to undertake a similar venture on the Lower East Side of New York City during the mid-1960s. ... Peter Coyote Peter Coyote (born Robert Peter Cohon October 10, 1941 in New York City) is the cofounder, with Emmett Grogan, of the San Francisco Diggers and veteran of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. ... The San Francisco Mime Troupe is a group of political, satirical actors, who perform free shows in various parks in the San Francisco Bay Area and around California. ... La Mortadella is actually a misspelling. ...

Activities

The Diggers fed people in the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park in Haight-Ashbury for free. They served a stew made from donated vegetables behind a giant yellow picture frame, called the Free Frame of Reference. People who came for the food were given a two-inch-by-two-inch frame to hang about their neck, called the portable Free Frame of Reference. The Diggers popularized whole-wheat bread with their Digger Bread, baked in coffee cans at the Free Bakery. The domed Conservatory of Flowers is one of the worlds largest. ... Categories: US geography stubs | San Francisco neighborhoods ...

They opened numerous Free Stores, in which all items were free for the taking or giving in Haight-Ashbury. The stores were funded by money from local merchants afraid of or supporting the Diggers, who paid a one percent tithe to the Free City Bank. The stores also offered items that had been discarded, but were still in usable condition. These items were collected (garbage-picked) by members of the group and others from the surrounding communities. The first free store was called Trip Without a Ticket. They also opened a Free Medical Clinic. Free store is a shop, mostly inspired by anarchist ideas. ...

They threw free parties with the Grateful Dead and other rock bands, planned on dates such as the solstice or equinox, with such sights as trucks of naked belly dancers driving through the neighborhood in the afternoon with black conga players, wine, and marijuana. Their publications, notably the Digger Papers, are the origin of such phrases as "Do your own thing" and "Today is the first day of the rest of your life". The Diggers fostered and inspired later groups like the Yippies. Bold text The Grateful Dead was an American psychedelia-influenced rock band. ... The Digger Papers was a free collective publication of the Diggers, one of the legendary sixties groups in San Franciscos Haight-Ashbury. ... The Youth International Party (whose adherents were known as Yippies, a variant on Hippies) was a highly theatrical political party established in the United States in 1967. ...

The Diggers fell apart for a variety of reasons, including allagations of heavy drug use, with at least one member of the troupe known to have been a herion addict at that time. Grogan, who was often named as the leader of the Diggers by those outside of it, had also previosuly delt with a herion addiction.

Books

• Sleeping Where I Fall: A Chronicle by Peter Coyote 1998 ISBN 158243011X
• Ringolevio by Emmett Grogan 1972
• Ringolevio: A Life Played for Keeps by Emmett Grogan, Peter Coyote (Illustrator) 1990
• "The Theater is in the Street" by Bradford D. Martin 2004 ISBN 1558494588
• "Can't Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age 1945-2000" by Martin Torgoff 2004 ISBN 0743230108

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External links

• The Digger Archives Home Page
• The Free-Fall Chronicles excerpts from Sleeping Where I Fall.