Protect Your Coast flyer, circa 1988.
The current Kelley House exhibit “Art of Resistance” documents the history of political and social activism in Mendocino. When talking with locals about the exhibit, one subject is mentioned almost above all else: the 1980s oil drilling protests.
In 2007, Rachel Binah spoke at the Kelley House Museum about the 1980s fight to preserve the coast. Binah estimates 5,000 people gathered in Fort Bragg to oppose Lease Sale 91, which would have put 1.1 million acres of undersea land for sale, allowing oil companies to purchase it at $25 per acre. This excerpt details her recollections of organizing opposition at the 1988 hearing.
“It started in 1984 for me. Our famous hearings took place in 1988, but in 1984 an oil company came to Mendocino for a hearing that took place in Crown Hall. This company made an application to do exploration off the coast. This oil company called my inn to make a reservation for the people who were coming here to testify. I said, ‘Well of course, I’ll be happy to have you come,’ and they requested a room with an ocean view. So, I gave them one.
I told them I was opposed to what they wanted to do, and that I would be testifying. When it was my turn to speak at the hearing, I said, ‘Everyone who comes to Mendocino wants a room with an ocean view, including this engineering company and these people who speak before you tonight, arguing that it will do no harm to tourism.’ I actually used them as a prop. We were successfully able to prevent them from doing that.”
The early hearings were related to the “exploration” off the coast, but in November 1987 one last hearing was scheduled before the lease sales would officially go through. This hearing took place in February 1988, giving locals a few months to prepare.
Rachel stated “We were galvanized into action.” “Well, what we need to do is have a meeting, not just a meeting with everybody in the whole world, but let’s have a strategy meeting with the most creative minds that we can figure out. So I called up some people that I knew.
We got some political operatives, we got some artists, actors, and musicians, and they came to my house and we put up. You know, in those days groups would put up paper all around and no idea was too foolish, and you would say just whatever you were thinking, and the idea would go on a piece of paper. Everybody had a chance to speak, and everybody had ideas, and some of them were really screwy, and some of them were good and when it was over we arranged to meet again. I remember thinking, no ‘we haven’t got it yet.’ Nobody came up with anything that was really useful.
Then I had this little sitting room upstairs in my inn, and a few people hung around afterwards. I brought some cake upstairs and coffee, and we were talking. Norman de’Vall came to this meeting with his son, Judd. Poor Judd, this little kid. He was about eight years old, and he was dragged along to every political meeting on the coast. Norman was our supervisor then, and Judd was upstairs in that sitting room. Judd found this book in my library, and it was the Guinness Book of Records. I noticed it on the sofa, and when I sat down, I picked it up, put it in my lap, and said to everybody ‘Well, I don’t know. This didn’t go well.’
I was looking through this Book of Records, and I happened to open it to a page about Wayne Morse. Do you know who Wayne Morse was? He was a senator, and he was famous for one particular thing. He led the longest filibuster in the Senate that had ever, until that time, been achieved when he spoke about protecting the tidelands of Oregon.
So I thought, ‘’Oh my God, a filibuster. That’s what we’ll do! We’ll have a filibuster, because what we want to do is talk until they stop, until they just give up. We will let Mendocino be Mendocino. We’ll invite everybody we possibly can to this location, they will come and testify, and it will be classic Mendocino. We can be sure it’ll be interesting.”
Rachel Binah’s 2007 event is recorded and available on the Kelley House Museum YouTube channel. “Art of Resistance” is open at the Kelley House now!
The Kelley House Museum is open Thursday-Monday, 11am to 3pm. Visit our event calendar for a walking tour schedule.