May a thousand parks bloom

How four Berkeley green spaces made history in the month of May

May 15, 1969: Blood Thursday

Alameda County Sheriff’s deputies murdered James Rector when they opened fire with live ammunition on a crowd that was attempting to reclaim People’s Park in Berkeley, which had been fenced off that morning.

People’s Park had been founded on UC-owned land in April by an assortment of artists and militants who wanted to fight back against “urban renewal” efforts in Southside Berkeley that were intended to push hippies and radicals out of the neighborhood.

For several weeks, highly diverse groups of people showed up to the park to mutually participate in creative work, building what they called a “liberated zone.” On May 15, the UC Regents (led by Governor Ronald Reagan) ordered the park fenced off and demolished.

Almost immediately, a rally was called, at which ASUC President-elect Dan Siegel urged the crowd of thousands to “go down there and take the park.” The demonstrators quickly came up against Alameda County Sheriff’s deputies, who had been authorized to use live ammunition.

Sheriff Charles Plummer (who said later, “I wish I would have hit some people harder” that day) had told his deputies they were “the last stronghold against the communists, and today we are going to crush them.” Bystander James Rector was shot and killed; 128 others were wounded.

Later that same day, Governor Reagan called in the National Guard, which occupied Berkeley until June. Although the violence dramatically escalated the People’s Park movement, the space was not reclaimed as a park until 1972.

May 20, 1969: Insurrection City

Activists forced out of People’s Park founded a second “liberated zone” in Berkeley. Despite numerous city attempts to demolish the space, Insurrection City (also known as “People’s Park Mobile Annex”) is now the site of Ohlone Dog Park.

Insurrection City was built atop land cleared for BART construction. In a repeat of the founding of People’s Park in April, activists laid down sod, planted trees, cooked pork stew, and built playground equipment on which children played.

Insurrection City was just one of several new spaces inspired by People’s Park’s call to “let a thousand parks bloom.” Earlier that month, a group of Black activists had founded the People’s Victory Garden on a nearby lot, planning to distribute vegetables at the Welfare Office.

These projects reflected Berkeley radicals’ growing interest in the politics of space, most clearly expressed in 1970’s “And But for the Sky there are No Fences Facing,” many of whose authors participated in the struggles over these parks.

These radicals hoped to create “liberated zones” which would serve as strategic bases for revolutionary activity and within which everyday life would be reorganized on a communal basis. The Free Church, who helped establish the annex park, worked this concept into their theology.

Ecology was central to this emerging politics of space. People’s Architecture, a group of radical architects involved with the park, developed a plan to turn the entire corridor owned by BART in North Berkeley into a green space. Much of this area is now the Ohlone Greenway.

The annex did not go on to serve as a base for revolution, but activists did manage to prevent its destruction. In the early 1980s it became one of the country’s first dog parks, and children can still play on structures built during the Insurrection City era.

May 31, 1971: Berkeley Way Mini-Park

Fifty people organized by the Intercommunal Survival Committee to Combat Fascism (ISCCF)—an official white auxiliary organization of the Black Panther Party—cleared a vacant lot in Berkeley to build a park. It remains to this day as Berkeley Way Mini-Park.

The ISCCF was one of the National Committees to Combat Fascism, which were founded after the Panthers’ United Front Against Fascism conference in 1969. The committees were multiracial, but many chapters were almost entirely white, including Berkeley’s.

Many members of the Berkeley ISCCF lived communally in their community center, which provided free bike repair, medical aid, childcare, and other services. The committee lasted for years, winning many small neighborhood-level fights around parks, traffic lights, and libraries.

May 19, 1989: People’s Park Riot

Thousands gathered in Berkeley to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the People’s Park movement, leading to a riot and street fight with police. A number of Telegraph Avenue businesses, especially new “gentrifying stores,” were smashed up, burned, and looted.

While the rioters saw themselves in the lineage of earlier struggles over the park (they screened Newsreel’s 1969 film “People’s Park” before the riot), they also signaled a new phase in those struggles, centering concerns over homelessness and gentrification.

Telegraph Avenue was being rapidly gentrified. As new boutiques popped up, the homeless population drastically increased. The riot was understood by many participants as a “social protest,” with large numbers from the homeless community and neighborhood youth joining the crowd. 

Despite constant harassment at People’s Park and police presence on Telegraph, one cop said they were wholly unprepared for the riot that night. Had rioters aimed their sights at the cops “they would have had us for lunch,” he told a Slingshot reporter.

The riot was also influenced by then-ongoing protests in China’s Tiananmen Square, and “Beijing to Berkeley” was a prominent slogan of the night. The rioters not only confronted police, but also faced off with “white frat boys” who assembled to defend The Gap from looting.

May 14, 2012: Occupy the Farm

University of California police raided and destroyed an occupation of Albany’s Gill Tract, a 104-acre UC-owned property, arresting nine people. For a month, Occupy the Farm held and farmed the land, which was slated to be sold for private development.

Activists had fought since 1997 to turn the Gill Tract into a center for sustainable urban agriculture but had been consistently blocked by the UC. On April 22, 2012, Occupy the Farm organizers, aligned with the Occupy movement, decided to take the land over and farm it themselves.

Occupiers chose the date of their occupation to coincide with Via Campesina’s International Day of Peasant Resistance. Occupy the Farm saw itself as “a cross-pollination of Occupy and food justice movements,” and was in direct communication with Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST).

Occupy the Farm had established about 70 planted rows, a seed library, chicken coops, and a lady-bug patch for children during the month-long occupation of the tract. Activists also hosted a number of teach-ins and educational events during that time.

On May 14, police raided and trashed the farm, although occupations continued on-and-off in the following years. In 2014, the UC turned the northern part of Gill Tract into a community farm, while the southern section has since been developed into a grocery store.