"Resplendent.... A masterwork of history."--Ron Jacobs, Counterpunch In eyewitness testimonies and hundreds of remarkable photographs, The Battle for People's Park, Berkeley 1969 commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most searing conflicts that closed out the tumultuous 1960s: the Battle for People's Park. 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?

Typewritten report by Berkeley Chief of Police Bruce R. Baker of the People's Park riots and "the mass arrest of over 400 persons" starting in mid-May 1969 and continuing through the end of the month. Chief Baker says that the origins of the demonstration, which resulted in violence on the side of the police and protesters, came from an April 18, 1969 article in the "Berkeley Barb," an underground newspaper that existed in Berkeley from 1965-1980. The report also lists the locations, times, and dates of police-related incidents. Includes two post-mortem photographs of James B. Rector, who was shot by police on May 15, 1969.

Photocopy of a typescript paper on the People's Park riots of May, 1969 in Berkeley, California.

"Abbie Hoffman, Yippie non-leader, notorious dope addict and up-and-coming rock group (the WHAT), is currently on trial with seven others for conspiracy to incite riot during the Democratic Convention. When he returned from the Woodstock Festival he had five days before leaving for Chicago to prepare for the trial. Woodstock Nation, which the author wrote in longhand while lying upside down, stoned, on the floor of an unused office of the publisher, is the product of those five days. Other works by Mr. Hoffman include Revolution for the Hell of It and Fuck the System, which he describes as a "tender love epic"."-- Back cover.