Many of the people who started the first natural food co-ops had cut their teeth in, or at least been inspired by, two other movements: the Civil Rights movement and the movement against the Vietnam War. Dave Gutknecht, longtime editor of Cooperative Grocer, was instrumental in the Twin Cities Draft Information Center, which was founded in 1967 and destroyed by a bomb blast soon after...
On May 10, 1972 3,000 people, mostly University of Minnesota students, protested the mining of North Vietnamese ports. Some tore down fences, flipping a car and coming into conflict with riot police at the scene. Susan Shroyer, who had been instrumental in the People’s Pantry, the predecessor to the Twin Cities’ first natural food co-op, was there with her 8mm camera, and she shared her dramatic footage with Radical Roots.
