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Welcome to the Freedom Archives' Digital Search Engine.The Freedom Archives contains over 12,000 hours of audio and video recordings which date from the late-1960s to the mid-90s and chronicle the progressive history of the Bay Area, the United States, and international movements. We are also in the process of scanning and uploading thousands of historical documents which enrich our media holdings. Our collection includes weekly news, poetry, music programs; in-depth interviews and reports on social and cultural issues; numerous voices from behind prison walls; diverse activists; and pamphlets, journals and other materials from many radical organizations and movements.

International Hotel (I-Hotel) Anti-Eviction Organizing Materials

This collection contains items related to the organizing efforts to keep residents in the International Hotel, which was a residential hotel in San Francisco’s Manilatown neighborhood housing mostly Filipino and Chinese low-income seniors. The Four Seas Corporation bought the hotel and in 1968 began seeking to evict the residents in order to build a parking lot on the site. Residents organized and struggled to stay in their homes from 1968-1977. Final evictions were carried out in 1977 aided by local government and law enforcement. Continued community organizing after eviction prevented the owner from constructing his planned development, even after the building was demolished in 1981.

This collection includes flyers, pamphlets, legal documents, tenant association by-laws, internal strategy notes, a draft manuscript and newspaper clippings addressing a two year time period from 1976-1978. Materials from the year prior to eviction document the creation and work of the International Hotel Tenants Association (IHTA), communication between IHTA committees, interaction with supporting activist organizations from outside the I-Hotel community, and communication with city officials. The year following eviction includes the sustained efforts of the IHTA and other organizations to prevent the demolition of the building and to return the residents to the hotel, including the campaign to pass a local proposition to save the hotel, and actions to physically block demolition.

Finding Aid: http://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC63_scans/63.FindingAidInternationalHotel.pdf

Documents

International Hotel Calendar 1978 International Hotel Calendar 1978
Publisher: Kearny Street Workshop PublicationsYear: 1978Call Number: OS 39Volume Number: Located in over-sized folderFormat: EphemeraCollection: International Hotel (I-Hotel) Anti-Eviction Organizing Materials
This calendar focuses on the struggle to keep the tenants of the International Hotel from being evicted during 1977. Each month has a pertaining photo that features photography from the protests and personal photos of tenants in their rooms. The calendar also includes poems from tenants and others regarding the eviction. Important dates regarding the chronology of the I-Hotel struggle and history are recorded.