Berkeley's city government had a Republican majority from its early years until 1961, when liberal candidates backed by the Berkeley Democratic Club gained control of Berkeley's City Council and School Board and began to take actions to end de facto racial segregation and to deal with social problems such as unemployment and lack of affordable housing. During the late 1960s Berkeley's Democrats became deeply divided over the war in Vietnam and over demands for black power. By the 1970s city politics were divided between two loose coalitions: the "moderates" centered in the affluent Hills, while the "progressives" formed in a group called the April Coalition and later organized on a more permanent basis as Berkeley Citizens Action.

In 1971 three progressive candidates, two of them African-American, were elected to the nine-member Berkeley City Council. From that point on, whether they held a majority or not, the progressives had major influence on city policies and were often able to get the voters to pass initiatives when the Council would not approve their proposals.