Select this to read [the Whole Story].By Sunday, May 11th, the Park was a formal reality, and was consecrated with a festival celebrated in defiance of onlokking City Police... "No trespassing" signs were posted [by the authorities] and removed [by supporters of People's Park] as fast as they were put up... [on] the morning of Thursday, May 14th, Alameda County Sherriff's deputies moved onto People's Park and a construction crew began erecting a high fence around the park.
By noon an unrelated rally... attracted several thousand students to hear speakers denounce the recent... actions at People's Park... Dan Siegal, President-elect of the student body, then stood up and shouted over the microphones, "Let's take back People's Park!"... the crowd... turned down Telegraph Avenue adjacent to the rally, shouting "Free People's Park" only to meet law officers with tear gas... When the mob perceived it could no longer attain its objective... it split into small groups and roamed throughout the south campus area. In doing so, it encountered the [police] TAC squads firing birshot... By mid-afternoon... Sherriff Frank Madigan ordered buckshot substituted for birdshot in efforts to control the crowd.
... Reports were that tear gas was so thick that the ill-trained sherriff's deputies could not tell the difference between innocent bystanders and rioting radicals. By day's end, 110 people had been admitted to hospitals for gunshot wounds in the People's Park riot...
That night, Governor Reagan called out the National Guard. Thus began the seventeen day siege of the city of Berkeley. As a result, the curfew was extended... and people continued to congregate on the streets throughout the evening in defiance of the curfew. The next Tuesday, May 20th, at noon, while students lounged in a quad formed by Sather Gate and the Student Union, troops sealed off the quad and awaited a helicopter belching highly toxic tear gas to drive students and [bystanders] into the police trap, where they were arrested...
> Can you tell me any more about the incident?
In 1969, Student body Presient Dick Miner visited Berkely campus just after the PeopleŐs Park riot, and while on the third story of the student union in conference with the new student body President of Cal, a helicopter belching toxic tear gas flew over the quad. National Guards men sealed off Sproul Plaza and Miner and the other student body president escaped arrest by an underground passage way leading to a garage. A San Jose State student was killed the day of the riot, and I was on the March in Sacramento where Dick Miner spoke on the steps of the Capitol to a student audience of l0,000 demanding Sheriff Frank MadiganŐs trial for complicity in murder.Couple more comments. Miner made a surprise on the spot visit to Dan Siegle (U.C. Student body President) and there was probably no connection to the gas and the visit. Just dumb luck. But I was told to stay out of there myself.
You continue:
Confrontations, arrests and tear gas continued for fifteen days. On Memorial Day weekend a march was held by some 25,000 to 50,000 people... in a televised protest of the former Berkeley street violence.
Page 7 of your thesis states that Governor Regan adopted a "shoot to kill" policy during the student uprising over People's Park. Can you give me more specifics about what this policy was?
Reagan himself in his younger years as first term governor had a shot to kill mentality. I recall Ron Harbeck relating a story to me of a conference call to the Acting President of San Jose State durning the Kent State Uprisings and [Reagan] ordered Dr. Hobert Burns to open fire on the students. State had had one police confrontation early in the movement in Oct. l967 and resulted in a public outcry on campus. Burns refused Reagan's demand, which probably sealed his fate as to his candidacy for permanent President. These are real poeople living real lives. Real blood was shed. Jobs were lost, leaders blackballed.Also, Burns didn't hear from Reagan regarding the 'famous' Dow Demostration with tear gas a mob of 5,000 angry students in l967, but when Reagan closed the campuses to thwart the communications lines in l970 over Kent State. The campus remained open , neither students nor faculty willing to leave while grievances remained outstanding.
Nixon came to visit Reagan soon after Peoples Park for a private conference. California was taking a disporportional degree of the heat in the media and Reagan made a reputaion as a red baiter while in his first term.
On page 8, you suggest that People's Park had an ominous impact on college
campuses:
Like the escalation in the confrontation at the Democratic National Convention a year before, People's Park represented one more step in the direction of violent response to youthful protest... in facing such opposition, traditional authorities entrenched themselves behind a wall of terrorism and violence to defend their control and power.
Whew... People's Park is a very sobering tale. It reminds me a whole lot of the way events unfolded in Tienamin Square. I remember at the time, how human rights groups around the country clamored for America to condemn China's actions. Was a similar public censure given to Alameda County by our national leaders after People's Park? The Sherriff was exhonorated for instigating the siege. Were any of his deputies tried? One man was killed and 110 were wounded. Was there ANY court action as a result of People's Park?
No, to my knowledge the most that came of it might have been a Grand Jury Investigation -- but I can't even be sure of that NO ONE in law enforcement was repremanded.
How close were they to outright rebellion against our country?
I was up on Berkeley campus the weekend of Valentines Day in l970. I ran shop at home when the shit went down around the State as things went in the late sixties. On campus the students wanted to lower the flag to half mast in Memory of James rector. The Reactionaries were against it. It was a hot issue and and emergency session of the student council was called to pass a special resolution which I had a hand in drafting. For the moment that took the heat.Real rebellion didn't take hold till after Edwards (James) election in Nov. l969, closely followed by the Cambodia Invassion. Then the students turned out in mass. The likes I haven't seen again until the heat from the Prop. l87 (Immigrants Rights Initiative) of this past year drove l0,000 students and minorites (mostly hispanic) to the Streets Nov. 4th 1994, but Kent State was really much worse as law enforcement overreacted on almost every front. Don't forget that students were also shot at Jackson State - but since it was a Black Kent State, nothing happened.
Select this to read [the Whole Story].
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Q: When did they (the demonstrations) get nastier?
In 1969, Nixon was President, Reagan was Governor, Sam Yorty was Mayor of Los Angeles. Chicago had shown what the "Establishment" thought of us. From then on, political demonstrations began to get more confrontational. The People's Park episode in Berkeley led to sympathy strikes across the state; we at UCLA, after all, were part of the same university system as Cal. In early May, following a very moving speech by someone I knew as a history teaching assistant for Western Civilization, a large number of us marched to the Administration Building and "occupied" it. We sat in the hallways and refused to leave. We held small group discussions on tactics all night. We were given the names and phone numbers of a couple of lawyers and told to write them in pen someplace on our skin, in case of arrest. Rumors of police being sent circulated all night, but none came. The next day, we left the Adminstration Building and marched throughout the campus to try to attract more supporters. We ended up in the Student Union and proceeded to occupy that (our own building). For the next several days, we heard speeches, canvassed for support in the neighboring community, and wondered what to do next.In the second week of the demonstrations at UCLA in support of People's Park, I began participation in a hunger strike. Actually, it was more like a fruit juice strike, twenty-some students who vowed to take no food until the National Guard left the Berkeley campus. That, at any rate, is what I think was our chief demand. And we did allow ourselves to drink juice. We encamped in the center of campus, in front of Royce Hall and became a focus for continued rallies that second week. I lasted four full days, while most of the group went on through the sixth before breaking fast at a vegetarian restaurant on Sunset Blvd. My involvement was marginal, but for a while, at least, it helped make me feel a little less powerless. And it put me into close contact with a sector of the movement with which I had previously had little contact. This was the consciously pacifist wing, which stressed non-violent action, but also pulled in vegetarianism, mysticism (e.g. the I-ching) and meditation.
Select this to read [the Whole Story].
