Radical as Ever, Former Student Boots Riley Takes on the Tech Boom

WIRED -- His house was always political — his parents met during the San Francisco State student strike in 1968 and his father Walter’s activism infected his son. Boots participated in his first strike, at a cannery in Watsonville, when he was 14. He joined the Progressive Labor Party the next year.

Meanwhile, Riley still needed to prepare to shoot his first feature. He had studied film two and a half decades before at San Francisco State, but knew he had to relearn everything. He says he “just went out and snatched mentors” wherever he could find them.