The San Francisco Bay Area, and in particular Berkeley, served as a Mecca for the remnants of the New Left in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Eight out of the ten members of the SLA moved to the Bay Area, either in search of education or to relive the passions and the protests of the anti-Vietnam war movement of the late sixties and early seventies.

As the war in Vietnam began winding down with American participation ending in January 1973, so did the student protest movement. In Northern California, the prison reform movement began to take center stage with what remained of the New Left. In the case of escaped convict Donald DeFreeze, and a group of nine others, found their African-American leader to jumpstart the revolution that deceased inmate George Jackson had so forcefully written about.

The SLA announced their arrival with the assassination of respected educator and Superintendent of Oakland schools, Marcus Foster. As the first African-American Superintendent of Oakland schools, Foster served as a role model for success for many. His assassination brought nothing but scorn from the New Left towards the SLA. Following the capture by police of two SLA soldiers, Russell Little and Joseph Remiro, the remaining members of the revolutionary group went underground and began planning the abduction of Patricia Hearst in order to free their comrades from jail. Instead of freeing Little and Remiro from jail, Hearst provided the SLA with almost unlimited access to the media.

The actions of the SLA did not serve as a vanguard for revolution as they had hoped. Instead, the SLA brought back memories of the violence and anarchy of the late sixties and early seventies that many did not wish to relive. America had moved on even though the membership of the SLA had not. This revolutionary group, however, served not as the vanguard of change, but the last gasp of the New Left and the student protest movement.