The End of People’s Park?
The bulldozer alert went out just after midnight on August 3rd: UC was moving on People’s Park…again. Hours earlier, a judge signed an order that opened the way — at least temporarily — for housing development on the park to move forward. Wasting no time, UC ordered dozens of police in riot gear, community service officers and security guards to the park. A 10-foot fence was being erected around the park.
A few activists, in an act of civil disobedience, blocked part of the sidewalk where the fence was being bolted down. They laid down and refused to move. After being warned that they were trespassing — even though they were on the sidewalk, which is city property — they were arrested by UCPD officers. The activists employed passive resistance and went limp. Officers rolled the activists onto their sides, zip tied their hands behind them and, one by one, carried them on stretchers into a parking lot across the street. Once there, they were sat on a cement floor, handcuffed and propped up against a police SUV. After several hours, the activists were all released.
By 9am, many more activists had peacefully made their way through the police barricades that blocked the streets surrounding People’s Park. Activists were far outnumbered by the army of police in riot gear. Their attempts to prevent trucks carrying bulldozers and other tree cutting equipment from entering the park were thwarted.
The trees started to fall — first by chainsaws and then knocked over by a bulldozer. The CREEEEACK that rang through the park as each tree crashed to earth was heart shattering.
Once at least 25 trees were razed, everyone left, except the activists. The park had become charnel grounds. The fig tree, always heavy with fruit, was decimated and covered by redwood branches. The head of the giant, 60+ year-old palm lay trunkless on the ground. Sap oozed from the cedar’s trunk where branches had been severed. All of this devastation, but the day was not done.
Hundreds of people were drawn to the park that evening. Many words of inspiration, unity and commitment were spoken to save this precious open space. Though they toppled the trees, UC did not win the day.
UC Regents and Berkeley city officials continue to focus on how they have provided temporary housing to those who used to live in the park. They refuse to admit this situation is entirely of their own making. Their drive to commodify every inch of Berkeley is taking away a park won by generations of Berkeleyans. A park cherished and run by the people without need of owners or money for the last 53 years.
Make no mistake, UC is tearing down a cultural icon that has been a beacon of free speech, empowerment, and compassion. People’s Park is a sanctuary for countless people — housed and unhoused. Many come to the park for community and connection. People who are hungry are fed. Magical encounters are a regular occurrence at this local treasure and worldwide symbol of peaceful resistance to state violence.
Two blocks from the park sits the Ellsworth-Channing garage, owned by UC. It is a seismically unsafe one-story parking structure with a tennis court on top. That is where UC must build the student and supportive housing project planned for People’s Park.
To turn a river, more and more stones must gather for the river to flow in a new direction. We can be those stones — an unwavering pole of peace and commitment to the park remaining a park. If you’re willing and able, come to the park and add yourself as a stone in the current.
Against all odds, let’s envision that People’s Park is returned to the Lisjan Ohlone people — the original stewards of this land — and that People’s Park remains a public park in perpetuity.
This article first published in the Berkeley Times on August 11, 2022.
