Edited by Alan Copeland and Nikki Arai

Published by Ballantine Books 1969

This was the book I was sent in 1969 that dissuaded me from completing my university studies in the US. At this time America's internal political climate must have appeared close to anarchy and authorities overreached everywhere. King and the Kennedys had been assassinated, Ronald Reagan (the B-Grade movie actor who was senile for most if not all of his Presidency) was Governor of California. The following year four students were killed by the National Guard at Kent State University.

People's Park exists to this day and the memory of the authorities' brutal response to a bit of civil disobedience lingers - on both sides. There are prominent murals commemorating the events and the City of Berkely, especially close to the University Campus, has the largest and most high profile police presence I have seen in what is basically a suburban shopping centre.

Historically the political movement, of which Peoples' Park was a manifestation and the Anti-Vietnam War movement the ultimate expression, grew out of the left's response to McCarthyism in the 50s. When Senator Joe McCarthy sought to brand all political dissidents and even mildly radical intellectuals as communists he politicised American campuses - especially UC Berkeley.

Today People's Park still has an ongoing role in supporting the homeless but most importantly it should remind us (in an era of Neo-McCarthyism when conservative governments around the world are using this phony war on terrorism as an excuse to suppress civil rights, freedom of speech and the environment movement) that it was the political strength and courage of the American people who stopped the Vietnam War.

Sadly, I am told, Nikki Arai died around 1980 but I would very much like to hear from Alan Copeland and get his approval for what I have done with his book.

Tony Ryan

Introduction

A muddy, rutted piece of land stood vacant in the center of our community for over a year. For over a year, we listened while University committees, community groups, and others proposed the building of a park. We heard the University protest that it had no funds, that studies would have to be made, committees formed. Finally, we took the land. We tended it, loved it, planted trees, grass, and flowers on it, made it into People's Park.

We used the land. We hadn't tested and analyzed the soil. We planted things and they grew. We hadn't run a feasibility study. We had enough labor, freely given, to build the Park. We had no budgets. We found the money and materials we needed in our community. We had no organization, no leader, no committee. The Park was built by anyone and everyone and we, all of us together, worked it out.

We were told we hadn't filled out the right forms, hadn't followed the correct procedures, hadn't been responsible, hadn't been patient. We had asked the wrong questions, and built a beautiful park.

It was an incredibly good feeling, building that Park. In this country of cement and steel cities, better suited for its machines than for its people, we made a place for people. At a time when only experts and committees, qualified and certified, are permitted to do things, we did something ourselves, and did it well. For all of us, hip and straight, the Park was something tangible that we had done, something that drew our community together. The Park was common ground. People's Park existed for a little more than a month. On "Bloody Thursday ' the day the fence went up around People's Park, we took to the streets. The fence stayed up, although the Chancellor supported a park, the University professors supported the Park, the student body voted for the Park, the City Council asked for the Park, and 30,000 people marched through the streets.

People's Park now stands empty and guarded. The Park died, the idea that created it lives. Let a thousand parks bloom!

Alan Copeland

June 22, 1957

Under the University of California's "Master Plan," for development of city land for University use, the Regents of the University allocated $1.3 million dollars (including student funds) for the purchase of land in the south campus area. The package of land included the site which was to become People's Park.

February 1968

Residents of the area were given notice of eviction, the houses razed and the lot left barren. Building on the lot was postponed by the University for lack of funds.

April 13, 1969

Local store owners and residents of the area surrounding the lot met to discuss possible alternative uses for the area which had become a parking lot and an eyesore, filled with trash and abandoned cars. Mike Delacour a local merchant, suggested a usermaintained and developed park on the site (an idea which had been advanced by the University's committee on housing and environment at an earlier d'ate).

April 20

Following an article in the BERKELEY BARB encouraging the creation of a park, several hundred people gathered on the lot to clear and level ground, plant trees, grass and flowers. Equipment was contributed by local merchants and heavy duty machinery was rented from the donations collected from residents of the area. Swings and playground equipment were set up for children and by evening free food was being distributed from a communal cooking area.

April 30

Executive Vice Chancellor Cheit, who had announced two days earlier hopes that construction of an intramural soccer field would soon be begun on the site (if funds were available), met with supporters of the park and proposed that "creative control" over one fourth of the land be given to the interested parties. He promised that no University construction would begin without advance warning.

May 6

Chancellor Roger Heyns.met with representatives of People's Park Committee, ASUC senators and members of the College of Environmental Design. The group was given three weeks to form a committee from the three groups and submit a plan for the construction of a park.

May 7

Vice Chancellor Cheit denied that construction for the University was set for the next Thursday and reaffirmed the promise of prior warning before construction.

May 8

Chancellor Heyns, Sim Van der Ryn (Chairman of the Chancellor's committee on Housing and Environment), ASUC Senator Jondavid Bachrach, and Wendy Schlessinger of the People's Park committee met to discuss ways to produce a plan for the park under Van der Ryn. The plans were understood to be subjected to review by the University Regents and the Chancellor would be given complete veto powers. A three-week period was given by Chancellor Heyns for the development of a plan.

May 13

A release was issued from Chancellor Heyns' office (Heyns having left Berkeley on the previous day for a speaking engagement in Washington, D.C.) stating that the University would ". ..have to put up a fence to reestablish the conveniently forgotten fact that the field is indeed the University's . . . The University is now prepared to proceed with site development. This property (Bowdich, Haste, and Dwight) belongs to the Regents of the University of California and will not be available to unauthorized persons." The reasons for the University's actions cited in the release were one, the failure of the individuals working on the land to form a "responsible committee" with which the University could consult, and two, the refusal to stop further development of the land. Van der Ryn of the University's Housing and Development Committee had, however, in an earlier letter (dated May 12th) observed that the park workers had demonstrated "good faith" by not continuing to develop the disputed land.

May 14

May 15 - "Bloody Thursday"

At noon it was announced that the planned march to the chancellor's office was cancelled and a rally would be held on the steps of Sproul Hall on the University campus.

Speaking at the rally, ASUC president-elect Dan Siegel discussed possible responses that might be taken to the University's actions. One of the alternatives, he said, was that the people, without committing felonies or injury might return to the park site in protest. Some of the people began chanting "We want the park" and the crowd of approximately 6,000 people began to move down the three blocks which separated the rally site from the park site. As the crowd stood chanting and singing in front of the police barricades, someone opened a fire hydrant. When the police moved into the crowd to shut off the hydrant some rocks were thrown and the police retaliated by firing tear gas to disperse the crowd.

The situation quickly turned into a freewheeling "street battle" with demonstrators hurling rocks and missiles at the police as the police flooded the south campus area with tear gas.

In the violence that followed a cityowned car was overturned and burned by demonstrators as a special squad of Sherriff's Deputies, armed with shotguns, began to move down the streets of Berkeley firing into crowds and at individuals. Although police had apparently used birdshot in the initial shootings, they began using double-0 buckshot because, as Captain Dyer later stated, "the birdshot ran out and the only thing left was buckshot." Many people were seriously wounded including Allan Blanchard who was permanently blinded, and James Rector who was fatally shot.~,

As the use of firearms spread to the other police forces the demonstrators broke up into small pockets of resistance hurling rocks et the roving groups of police. The police slowly I cleared the area around the park and the University campus by the use of small armed groups and a National Guard gas unit roving the back streets in an Army jeep with a police shotgun guard.

By the end of the day, 791 policemen from the City of Berkeley, the Highway Patrol, and nine Bay Area communities had been deployed in Berkeley, 48 people arrested, and at least 128 injured people, including three news men, had reported to public hospitals mainly for treatment of gunshot wounds of which 12 cases required immediate hospitalization. Nineteen policemen were treated for injuries, none were hospitalized.

May 16

The National Guard moved into Berkeley.

The above bare-chested youth in this photo by Allan Alcorn is now, according to a recent correspondent (Dec. 2001), a sociology professor at a university in New York.

An attempted rally on Sproul Hall steps was broken up by the police and then a crowd of about 3,000 people marched to the downtown Shattuck shopping area of Berkeley to protest the brutality of the previous day and the deployment of the National Guard. The arrival of the National Guard broke up the march and a meeting on campus to plan further tactics was broken up by police with tear gas and twentyone arrests were made. A group of 2,000 people, meeting in nearby Oakland to circumvent the curfew regulations, voted to "peacefully take over downtown Berkeley" in an attempt to "make certain that no normal business goes on in the city while there are troops."

May 17-19

Large numbers of demonstrators gathered each day in the downtown shopping areas and the police and National Guard would disperse them and make arrests. Attempts to plant other "People's Park" annexes by the marchers were thwarted by the police and Guard who followed the march and pulled up the newly planted vegetation.

A special meeting of the Berkeley City Council discussed alternatives to the situation including Mayor Wallace Johnson's suggestion that a "Neighborhood Park" be set up at the site of People's Park with the University leasing that parcel of land to the city for this purpose. The Council also called for a County Grand Jury investigation of the violence of the previous week.

A vigil in memory of James Rector was held by the Faculty on Sproul Hall steps and when the 3,000 to 4,000 people who had gathered attempted to leave the campus, they were blocked by guardsmen. The crowd then moved on to the Chancellor's house where police dispersed them with tear gas and clubs. The people then split up and drifted back toward the main plaza where a University-wide referendum on the status of the park was being voted upon. At 1:58, an announcement was made that "chemical agents were about to be dropped." As people realized that they were trapped by the guardsmen and the police encircling the campus area, an Army helicopter made a pass over the area at an altitude of 200 feet, releasing CS tear gas (a type developed by the army for use in Viet Nam and outlawed for war-time use by the Geneva Convention). Students reeled from the gas, vomiting and panic-striken. Gas fumes spread into the community, to children playing in the Strawberry Canyon recreation area on campus, to patients in the Cowell Hospital, and to students in several elementary and secondary schools near the area, all of whom suffered the effects of the CS gas.

A six-block area of downtown Berkeley was sealed off by police and the National Guard, and a mass arrest of 482 people marching in the area was made for blocking the street and failure to disperse. The group was then taken to Santa Rita Prison and an average bail of $800 per person was set.

The results of the University referendum on People's Park in the largest voting turnout in the University's history, were released: 12,719 of the 14,969 who voted were in favor of having the park.

May 23

The Sheriff, who said his young deputies "have the feeling that these prisoners should be treated like Viet Cong ' indicated that disciplinary action would be taken against the guards.

The Faculty Senate voted 642 for and 95 against in a motion that the fence around People's Park be removed and called for an investigation of police activities.

May 24-29

This period saw daily marches of protest and arrests by law enforcement officers. Many small "annex" parks were created in vacant lots around Berkeley, the largest being People's Park Annex # 1, with plants, trees, sod and a children's playground.

On May 26, 9,000 students from around the state met in Sacramento for a peaceful protest march to the State Capitol.

On May 27, the Berkeley City Council voted to encourage the Regents to allow a "community generated park" at the People's Park site. A march to support the park was called for Memorial Day and the Academic Senate of the University voted to call on the administration to take steps to remove a portion of the fence prior to the march.

On May 29, Chancellor Roger Heyns announced his support for the University leasing the eastern 200 feet of the People's Park to the City of Berkeley and that evening the City Council declared the city ready to lease a portion of the land for a "userdeveloped, user-maintained park." Sheriff Madigan stated that shotguns would again be issued to his men for the following day.

May 30

An estimated 20-30,000 people marched through five miles of Berkeley streets and passed the fenced People's Park. There were no incidents.

June 20

The University of California Regents met and voted to turn People's Park into a parking lot and soccer field.

People's Park is now a 270 x 465 foot lot of level grass and asphalt surrounded by an eight foot steel mesh fence and protected by a twenty-four hour shift of security guards.