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In eyewitness testimonies and hundreds of remarkable photographs, The Battle for People's Park commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most searing conflicts that closed out the tumultuous 1960s.
"Excellent . . . reads like a gut punch." —The Guardian
In April 1969, a few Berkeley activists planted the first tree on a University of California-owned, abandoned city block on Telegraph Avenue. Hundreds of people from all over the city helped build the park as an expression of a politics of joy. The University was appalled, and warned that unauthorized use of the land would not be tolerated; and on May 15, which would soon be known as Bloody Thursday, a violent struggle erupted, involving thousands of people.
Hundreds were arrested, martial law was declared, and the National Guard was ordered by then-Governor Ronald Reagan to crush the uprising and to occupy the entire city. The police fired shotguns against unarmed students. A military helicopter gassed the campus indiscriminately, causing schoolchildren miles away to vomit. One man died from his wounds. Another was blinded. The vicious overreaction by Reagan helped catapult him into national prominence. Fifty years on, the question still lingers: Who owns the Park?
"This book is a definitive account of the battle for People's Park, a 50th anniversary gem." —Paul Von Blum, Truthdig
"Resplendent . . . A masterwork of history." —Ron Jacobs, Counterpunch
"Dazzling." —Berkeley Daily Planet
Tom Dalzell has lived in Berkeley since 1984. After working for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers for 10 years as a legal worker and then lawyer, he went to work for another labor union in 1981 and has been there since, first as an attorney, and, since 2006, as its elected leader. In his free time he walks the streets of Berkeley, street by street and block by block, recording and photographing the quirky material culture that he finds. Dalzell, who is an expert on slang, writes the Quirky Berkeley blog and contributes to Berkeleyside about his finds, both in the present tense and with an occasional foray into Berkeley’s non-conformist past.
Todd Gitlin is the author of numerous books, including The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. A former professor of sociology at UC Berkeley, he is currently a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University.
Steve Wasserman, raised in Berkeley and a graduate of Cal, is Heyday’s publisher. He is a former editor-at-large for Yale University Press and editorial director of Times Books/Random House and publisher of Hill & Wang and The Noonday Press at Farrar, Straus & Giroux. He has written for many publications, including The Village Voice, Threepenny Review, The Nation, The New Republic, The American Conservative, The Progressive, Columbia Journalism Review, Los Angeles Times, and the Times Literary Supplement.