San Francisco's decades long history of protest

For generations, San Francisco has been the heart of the American protest movement. In the 1960s, it was demonstrations against the Vietnam War. Later came repeated pushes for gay rights and other liberal causes. More recently, activists have targeted gentrification fueled by tech workers who've been flooding into the picturesque neighborhoods, driving up rents and evictions and making it the priciest city in the country.

But with Donald Trump in the White House, those tech workers and the area's old-school activists are finding common cause. Liberals have started trying to join activists' street tactics and passion with the expertise — and money — of the technology industry. When radicals join with successful professionals it can cause some dizzying scenes, but the Bay Area is used to a little chaos.

---

Pickets dragged from the lobby of the San Francisco Sheraton-Palace hotel on March 7, 1964, chant as they sit in a police patrol awaiting transportation to jail. They were among several hundred who staged a sit-down in the hotel in protest of what they claim is a discriminatory hotel hiring policy. (AP Photo)

Andrew McDonald II, a San Jose State college student from Hayward, claps as San Jose marchers parade at the Federal Building in San Francisco on March 14, 1965 during Selma, Alabama protest demonstration. The San Jose group walked the 45 miles to San Francisco in three days. McDonald said he wheeled most of the way. (AP Photo)

Demonstration in San Francisco on March 14, 1965 to protest treatment of African-Americans in Selma. Civil rights demonstrators, four abreast and reaching for several blocks, marched up Market Street to hear an address by Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike, a recent visitor to Selma, Alabama. (AP Photo/Ernest K. Bennett)

One young woman was unhappy about being taken into custody by police in the Haight-Ashbury district, April 3, 1967, San Francisco, Calif. More than 2,000 persons, most of them hipsters from the area, parade around until police started arresting some for unlawful assembly and failure to disperse. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

Peace demonstrators fill Fulton Street in San Francisco April 15, 1967 during their five-mile march through the city. The march winds up at Kezar Stadium where a peace rally will be held. Groups came from Los Angeles and the Northwest to join in the march and rally. San Francisco City Hall is in the background. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

In this Aug. 11, 1971 photo, poet Allen Ginsburg, right, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, left, join a picket line outside Varig Airlines in protest over theater people who had been arrested in Brazil. (AP Photo/Sal Veder)

Police officers and demonstrators are seen outside City Hall during a riot which broke out following the controversial sentencing of Dan White who was found guilty of manslaughter for the assassination of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk. San Francisco, May. 21, 1979. (AP Photo)

More than 100 students and other anti-nuclear demonstrators protest outside the UC Regent's office in San Francisco after the Regents voted 7-15 to maintain ties with the Los Alamos, N.M., nuclear laboratory that has developed every major nuclear weapon, July 20, 1979. Several demonstrators lay on the ground to simulate death from nuclear war, forcing several regents to climb over them. (AP Photo/Olsen)

In this May 22, 1979 photo, demonstrators smash glass out of the front doors of the San Francisco City Hall. Thousands marched from the city's gay community to city hall, protesting the voluntary manslaughter conviction of Dan White in the fatal shootings of Mayor George Moscone and city supervisor and gay rights activist Harvey Milk. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

Thousands of people march in downtown San Francisco from Golden Gate Park to City Hall on August 27, 1983 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King's March on Washington. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

A demonstrator stands on tiptoe and blows bubbles as he participates in a gay rights demonstration in San Francisco, July 15, 1984, on the eve of the start of the 1984 Democratic National Convention. The demonstrators marched two miles carrying banners opposing discrimination and demanding federal funds to combat AIDS. (AP Photo/Joe Skipper)

Demonstrators participate in gay rights protest in San Francisco, July 15, 1984, on the eve of the start of the 1984 Democratic National Convention. The demonstrators marched two miles carrying banners opposing discrimination and demanding federal funds to combat AIDS. (AP Photo/Joe Skipper)

Four members of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a protest group from San Francisco are shown as they arrived at the Dallas Airport in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday, August 15, 1984 for the Republican National Convention. (AP Photo)

Members of the San Francisco Gay community march down Market Street protesting Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Conner's visit to San Francisco, Thursday, July 17, 1986, San Francisco, Calif. Justice O'Connor is scheduled to speak to the Bay Area Council on "The Workings of the Court." The protest is in response to the Supreme Court's recent ruling on sodomy. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

Veterans, holding their medals they received from three wars, stand beneath a banner in San Francisco, Calif., Aug. 7, 1986, protesting America's policies in Central America. More than 20 veterans handed in their Purple Hearts, Bronze Stars and other medals in a ceremony to protest the escalating, U.S. role in Central America. (AP Photo/Jim Gerberich)

Protesters with the group ACT UP shout on the floor of the Moscone Center while disrupting the keynote speech of Louis Sullivan, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, during the closing ceremonies of the 6th International AIDS Conference, Sunday, June 25, 1990 in San Francisco, Calif. Sullivan delivered his speech despite a wall of noise from the demonstrators. (AP Photo/Bill Beattie)

Two San Francisco police officers restrain an unidentified AIDS protestor near the Sixth International Conference on AIDS, June 22, 1990 in San Francisco, Calif. About 100 people were arrested on the third day of the international conference. (AP Photo/Bill Beattie)

California Highway Patrol officers prepare to allow 250 students from various Marin County high schools to march asross the Golden Gate Bridge from Sausalito to San Francisco on Friday, May 1, 1992. The peaceful march was to protest the verdict in the Rodney King trial. (AP Photo/Court Mast)

Over 5,000 protesters gather at Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco to denounce the new Bush presidency, Saturday, Jan. 20, 2001. (AP Photo/George Nikitin)

In this June 6, 2004 photo, Ryan Silva holds a protest banner as a busload of BIO 2004 conference attendees arrive for an opening night reception in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Three members of the Students for a Free Tibet hang a banner from the Golden Gate Bridge to protest China's human rights record and the impending arrival of the Olympic torch in San Francisco on Monday, April 7, 2008. (AP Photo/Jakub Mosur)

In this Nov. 15, 2008 photo, Alexander Sanchez waves a rainbow-colored U.S. flag in front of a large crowd of supporters of same-sex marriage in front of City Hall in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Darryl Bush)

In this June 4, 2010 photo, Gail Sredanovic, of Raging Grannies, protests Facebook's privacy issues outside Facebook headquarters,Palo Alto, Calif. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma,

In this Dec. 20, 2013 photo, anti-gentrification protesters temporarily block a shuttle bus full of tech workers at a Mission District public bus stop in San Francisco. (Kurtis Alexander/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

This Jan. 14, 2013 photo shows a restored water tower with graffiti, shown through an entryway to the main cell house on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco. The writing, which is on a roughly 10-story-tall water tower on the island's northern end, reads "Peace and Freedom Welcome Home of the Free Indian Land" in red capital letters up to 5 feet high. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

In this Feb. 23, 2016 photo, people hold up signs during a rally in support of data privacy outside an Apple store in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

In this Feb. 3, 2016 photo, people hold up signs and a tent during a protest to demand city officials do more to help homeless people outside Super Bowl City, a weeklong football theme park near the Ferry Building in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

In this Oct. 2, 2016 photo, from left, San Francisco 49ers outside linebacker Eli Harold, quarterback Colin Kaepernick and safety Eric Reid kneel in protest during the national anthem before an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

---

Text from the AP story, AP Photos: San Francisco's decades long history of protest. 

See these photos on AP Images

Follow AP photographers on Twitter

Written content on this site is not created by the editorial department of AP, unless otherwise noted.