Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 28, 2011)
street roots Oct 28, 2011 Another piece of occupied land: People’s Park More than 40 years on, the creation of People’s Park remains an inspiration for modern movements BY MARY PACIOS CONTRIBUTING WRITER The year was 1968, the place Berkeley, Calif. When eco-activist Chuck Herrick was killed in a car accident, a few of Chuck’s friends planted trees and flowers on a piece of public land at the comer of Dwight Way and Telegraph Avenue, near the University of California; We called the small area Herrick Peace & Freedom Park. Hie Berkeley Barb, an underground newspaper, called it a “people’s park.” For a few months, in Chuck’s memory, we served free soup and bread at the small piece of “liberated land.” A couple of months later, people started planting flowers on vacant land a few blocks away at Dwight Way and Haste Street The land, owned by the University of California, Berkeley (UC), was the subject of controversy. Students — until evicted by the university in mid-term — had lived in the large homes that once stood on the square block ofdand. The students had pleaded with UC to let them stay at least until the efldjDfdhe^s^esler, but the university administration insisted they needed the land right away. The houses remained vacant for months, eventually becoming crash pads. The administration threw out the trespassers, and in a city with a desperate need for student housing, razed the buildings. The lot turned into a muddy wasteland. Word of mouth and the Berkeley Barb (cell phones and the Internet did not exist) helped swell the first trickle of gardeners into hundreds of ad hoc beautifiers. Weekends turned into huge block parties. Artists brought sculptures. Meandering brick walks were laid down. Merchants on Telegraph Avenue donated money to purchase trees and bushes. The “hippies,” instead of hanging out in front of the Telegraph Avenue stores, moved over to the park and solved what merchants considered a major problem blocked doorways that turned away That weekend the most customers. A radical thing a person could makeshift sign went up in the blossoming do in Berkeley was plant a lot — “People’s Park”. flower. Pick-up trucks filled Hie architect Sim . with trees and plants were Van der Ryn, Professor of driven all over the city; Ecological Design at guerrilla gardeners jumped UC, attempted to out of the back and quickly negotiate with the planted trees and flowers in campus administration to keep People’s Park any vacant land they intact Van der Ryn spotted. Police in hot pursuit proposed that the brought their cars to a park become a screeching halt, jumped out, laboratory the landscape architecture and pulled up any new department could plants within view. study. He noted that at a time when it was difficult to get people involved in planning open spaces and parks, hundreds were creating People’s Park. The Berkeley Gazette (an ultra conservative newspaper) quoted Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver calling for “the people” to seize all vacant land and grow food for the poor. The UC administration reacted, and while the negotiating talks with Van der Ryn were in progress, hastily erected a chain-link fence around the park to keep people out On May 15,1969, a burgeoning crowd rallied on the Berkeley campus, marched to the park, and stormed the fence, pulling it down. Sheriff’s deputies in riot gear were called to disperse the crowd. Faced with the show of force, people retreated up Telegraph Avenue, blocking traffic. Someone threw a rock. The lawmen fired. Over a hundred demonstrators and sheriff’s deputies were injured in the melee. Two bystanders watching from a rooftop were hit by sheriffs’ buckshot One, an art student, Allen Blanchard, was blinded; the other bystander, James Rector, was killed. Returning home that night, we saw a note pinned to our door. It was from Charlie Deylin, a pacifist and dedicated environmental activist Charlie quoted Golly Jipson: “This is not the vision I had.” Amid the furor, Councilman Ron Dellums was the only elected official who made any sense. At an emergency Berkeley City Council meeting, Dellums said, “No crummy piece of land is worth a human life.” The ex-Hollywood actor, Governor Ronald Reagan, called out the California National Guard, and a curfew went into effect Coming back from Oakland, we were halted at the Berkeley border and had to produce evidence of where we lived. Other cars were turned back. National guardsmen — young guys, who were from rural areas and who, in all likelihood, had joined the guard as a means to avoid the draft — were stationed on street corners throughout Berkeley, guns at their sides. A large contingent protected the hew fence. The guardsmen stood with rifles drawn, keeping the crowd at bay as policemen in riot gear, stationed behind the fence, pulled up the flowers and plants in “People’s Park”. Students approached the guardsmen without hostility, speaking softly; some put flowers in the gun barrels. A coed standing next to me took off her blouse, shimmying her exposed breasts as the crowd chanted: “Make love, not war!” For one guardsman it was all too much; he put down his rifle, sat on the pavement and cried. That weekend the most radical thing a person could do in Berkeley was plant a flower. Pick-up trucks filled with trees and plants were driven all over the city; guerrilla gardeners jumped out of the back and quickly planted trees and flowers in any vacant land they spotted. Police in hot pursuit brought their cars to a screeching halt, jumped out, and pulled up any new plants within view. The police cars were out numbered, and the plants temporarily won out A few days after the guerrilla planting, my husband and I were having lunch with Stephen, our five-year-old, in downtown Berkeley. Emerging from the restaurant we See PEOPLE'S PARK, page 13 Above top, police march against protesters during the demonstrations in defense of People’s Park. Above, People’s Park as it lookds today.
