A protest, four decades later

Forty years ago, something remarkable happened in the Legislature that forever changed the culture in California's most public building. Today, metal detectors monitor everyone who enters the state Capitol. But in 1967, more than a dozen Black Panthers with loaded weapons stormed the building to demand the right to carry weapons.

The story is recounted today by George Skelton, our columnist, who was there:

"May 2, 1967, was a nice sunny day in Sacramento. Gov. Ronald Reagan was about to join an eighth-grade social studies class on the Capitol's west lawn for a fried chicken lunch. Suddenly a group of guys with guns - rifles, shotguns, side arms - came marching through.

"From the Associated Press bureau on the Capitol's second floor, chief correspondent Bill Stall was glancing out the window. The future Times staffer remembers the bizarre scene: 'They looked like an infantry company coming through the trees.' "

What happened next, Skelton writes, marked the end of "an era of innocence, a time when politicians regarded the domed, granite monolith as a sanctuary from the dangers of everyday violence. It ushered in the gradual tightening of security, culminating in the fortress-like building it is today, guarded by magnetometers, security cameras and vehicle-stopping steel posts ringing the park."

(Photos: AP)