I didn’t know the Hate Man well, perhaps no one did, but in a strange way I had a big impact on his life. It began when I was having a conversation many years ago (1968), about what to do with the parking lot that became known as People’s Park. It was located in back of our coffee shop the Caffè Mediterraneum. This was an important event for the Hate Man because he later lived outdoors in that park for almost thirty years.
That early conversation was with Bill Miller and Michael Delacour about what to do with the vacant lot owned by the University of California. The UC had taken it legally by eminent domain and torn down the houses on the property but they ran out of money to rebuild it to their needs. Thus it lay empty for over a year and functioned as a free parking lot for the public. The UC authorities then tried to reclaim it for their use but the public resisted. Blood was shed, some of my friends were shot. George Pauly, the owner of the local art theater, was shot while standing on his theater’s balcony, and a man standing near him named James Rector, who was unknown to me, was shot and died.
My earlier participation consisted of suggesting to Bill and Michael that the way to get the public involved in defending that property was to get them physically involved in innocent things like planting a garden for food and flowers. Within minutes Michael had procured a shovel and we were out in the field digging. After a couple of shovelfuls of dirt, I went back and worked on drinking coffee and talking to brilliant people for the next forty years. I was around for many of the various Free Speech conflicts, Anti-War protests and the People’s Park conflicts with Ronald Reagan, but not conspicuously so, although I did escape from Sproul Hall down a rope from the high balcony with police in pursuit. To the cheers of thousands below.
My decades-long friend Ted Friedman got involved with our local underground newspaper and used a photo I took for his article about George Pauly. He put his byline on the photo. That didn’t bother me one bit but I am here returning the favor by posting this picture of the Hate Man in my blog without a byline.
The Hate Man does a hate-filled fist bump with a Berkeley cop.
A big-hearted piece of Berkeley died when the Hate Man died.
Last Tuesday I drove from Bend, Oregon, down to visit the closing of the Caffe Mediterraneum on 2475 Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California. I spent nearly fifty years there, rarely missing a day, until the day I departed in a huff. On the link just made above it claims that “Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Jerry Rubin and Patty Hearst” were regulars. I did know Jerry Rubin, and I saw Patty Hearst there but I never saw Ginsberg, or Kerouac, and as they were famous I’m sure they would have been commented upon by the regulars had they been there. There were many others who were there who were writers, and who published scholarly works, and who created important scientific knowledge. Those things are of far more lasting value than being involved in transient protests and protest literature.
The Berkeley Barb, for example, was founded in the Med by Max Scherr. I know that because I was a close friend of Max at that time we had several extended conversations about creating a newspaper. He valued my opinion, in part because I was a mover in the creation of a little monthly underground thing called The Editors. That was a Channing Club effort, which wasn’t particularly political, but it did have about twenty issues. I never thought much about those conversations, but Max did invite me and Susan Hesse to dinner and we shared the last bottle of wine, or beer, I don’t remember which from his first case of booze from his bar, The Steppenwolf.Herman Hesse, the author, was Susan’s uncle and her guardian after her parents died. I had some bylines in a few of the early issues of the Barb, but Max rewrote an article I submitted in running-dog-lackey style with my byline on it. I insisted that he write a statement to that effect, which he never did, and I never spoke politely to him again. From its first issue, August 13, 1965, to July 1980, the Berkeley Barb had a huge influence on the whole world. I picked up a bundle of issue number one from Max and sold some of them in the Med. It took a long conversation to sell the first issue of a single sheet of an unknown newspaper, even for a dime.
People’s Park was another event of lasting value, and I was at the creation of the People’s Park, and that happened in the Med too. I know because I was there with Big Bill Miller, the owner at the time of the bookstore across the street, and Michael Delacour. We were discussing how to get a several acre plot of land behind the Med to be made into a city park. It had been used for a year as a do-it-yourself people-created parking lot.
The University of California owned the land thru eminent domain seizure, and they had demolished the classic Berkeley style houses, but they ran out of money and hadn’t done anything with the property; thus it sat unused for two years and was often a muddy mess. They were trying to reclaim it physically, and take it away from the local residents’ spontaneous use of the space as a free parking lot. The three of us were discussing a strategy for keeping it for the local people. I hit on the idea of planting it with flowers and crops because the local people could get behind that idea and participate in something peaceful but symbolic of our ownership. Michael immediately got up to fetch a shovel from somewhere and was back in a few minutes. The three of us then went out and started digging.
The second day at the parking lot, several of people were digging.
After digging a few shovels of dirt I went back and finished my coffee. The next Berkeley Barb, April 18, 1969, had an article by Stew Albert and it became a movement. After a violent struggle, with much bloodshed and one death, the People’s Park became a city park. It was one of the few political events that Ronald Reagan clearly lost. But ultimately the law was on our side and we won. Five decades later it is still a park, and is still guarded by Michael Delacour.
I found this photo on Google where on May 16, 1969, even my dog Tiger got into the armed scuffle.
The national guard hold off a protestor, while Tiger watched and probably barked from the open window of my VW van.
The last few days I have participated in several social projects even though I am not particularly radical, nor do I believe the Occupy Movement has much real traction for changing the fundamental problems in American society. All the same it is possible to challenge established power structures and be successful if one has a very specific thing which clearly needs to be done and pursues that with vigor and diligence.
That was my feeling when I introduced Michael Delacour to the Unitarian Universalist Social Justice committee luncheon held at the Common Table restaurant here in Bend, Oregon. Michael is one of the few people to ever challenge Ronald Reagan and win his personal political goals. Therefore he is a good person to present to the people who are seeking to make a meaningful change in our local and national political scene.
The luncheon had about fifteen people in attendance and Michael fielded their questions with a quiet grace and courtesy. Everyone respected his dedication and appreciated his lifetime of experience of struggle for a worthy goal which was in conflict with a very powerful organization. Michael was able to lead some people of Berkeley, California, in a struggle against the University of California’s plan to confiscate private property via the use of their powers of eminent domain. The local people wanted a park and the university wanted this particular parcel of land, located three blocks from campus, to build more dormitories. There are many sides to this political issue, but the point of this blog is to show how a person can win in a struggle against a very much bigger organization, if they do things right.
A dozen people at the UU Social Justice luncheon with Michael Delacour
About 15 people were at the weekly Occupy protest at Bend’s Bank of America
Occupy the Music at Bend, Oregon’s Tower theater had well over 200.
The People’s Park struggle still goes on after decades of conflict between the University of California, Regents, the City of Berkeley and the people who actually have lived in and near the park their entire lives. I believe all of these people are motivated by good intentions, and therefore it is easy for me to converse in a very positive way with all of them. The problems are manifold but when each group’s intentions are viewed from their perspective their behavior is perfectly logical and honest.
The University needs to grow and thus to serve the people of California and the world with high quality knowledge which improves the lives of everyone. The City of Berkeley needs tax revenues to provide goods and services to the residents of Berkeley, but the University isn’t required to pay taxes because it is a public organization, but it does exercise the right of eminent domain to take high quality property away from the citizens of Berkeley, to enlarge its domain. This directly impacts the local citizens in a negative way if they are not directly helped by university affairs. Over the years the university has moved its borders several blocks into what was formerly private tax-paying land and buildings. Back in the mid 1960s the South Campus people rose in rebellion at the excessive aggressions of the university in several overlapping confrontations: the anti-Vietnam War activities, the Free Speech Movement and the People’s Park confrontations. All of these were associated with peaceful argument, legal actions and with street disruptions and subsequent police actions.
The Vietnam War is now distant history to today’s students; it was a conflict of their grandparents’ generation. The Free Speech Movement is also forgotten – it was about the right to have nonprofit tables espousing student causes – and now there are perhaps 30 tables set out on the plaza every noon, but it is a largely forgotten victory for the students’ rights.
The People’s Park is the only remnant of those efforts of the 60s which is still being contested, and that is in the form of Michael Delacour and a few others still holding on to the land that the University wants. The People’s Park (at 37.866 -122.258) is 500 meters from Sather Gate, (at 37.8703 -122.2595) which was once the boundary to the university. Now the university is building yet another structure, but this one is practically hanging over this land still held sacred to local people. Probably all of the administrators who fought on the University side, like Ronald Reagan from the 60s, are dead, and so too are most of the People’s Park side of the contest. But, not all – Michael Delacour still thrives and is still holding the park for the people.
Michael Delacour is still working the land at People's Park.
People's Park with construction crane hanging overhead.
The man in the green shirt is standing where Delacour is standing in the previous photo. This is a half a mile from campus and shows just how far the university has extended its property claims into the city of Berkeley. There is considerably more even further away, most of which was taken from private citizens through legal procedures of eminent domain.
Honest people with positive motivations can still come into conflict.
Today coffee and conversation were once again my morning priorities and after brushing my teeth it was time to dive into the Cafe Mediterraneum, on Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, California. People familiar to me were already there so after getting my coffee things started perking up right away. After a few minutes a very strange thing happened, a very first for me: Michael Delacour, Berkeley’s foremost radical, came into the café, sat down at the table with me and we continued our conversation from yesterday. But this time he had a better idea of what I was about because he had read some of my blog posts. It was a real treat being able to talk to someone whom I barely knew conversing with me about some of my published ideas. Usually, when these things get discussed, if they are ever discussed, it is in the format of open-ended coffeeshop-style conversation, and that makes it very chaotic to develop any complex idea.
The second astonishing thing was that Michael brought me a copy of People’s Park: Still Blooming, Berkeley, CA, by Terri Compost. He gave me this book and signed it for me, upon my request, and said it was the first time he had ever autographed a book. No one, almost unknown to me, has ever given me a book. He said he had purchased five of them, one for himself and the others for his friends.
As if that wasn’t strange enough, when I looked at the cover photograph I had an eerie memory of one of the most astonishing minutes of my life. The photo is of a group of gas masked soldiers, with bayonets fixed and pointing into the air just over the heads of three coeds sitting on the ground in protest of those soldiers being there. That confrontation lasted for a very short time, but what is personal for me was that I was standing alone about thirty yards directly behind those guys at that very minute. I had just been forced to leave a building and suddenly found myself in the middle of a square of soldiers on all sides of me with their backs to me and their guns and bayonets pointed outward. I stood there for a half a minute wondering what to do, and some guy in a gas mask came over and started yelling at me. It is surprisingly difficult to understand what someone in a gas mask is yelling, especially when they have a pistol on their hip and a bunch of bayonet pointing soldiers at their command. I asked what he wanted me to do, and the essence of it was probably to get the hell out of here. I rotated around in an effort to comply, but there was no place to go. He yelled at me again, and I rotated again and started feeling dizzy. He apparently understood my problem and pointed and shoved me in the direction, which turned out to be the backs of these very soldiers in the picture. So, I squeezed between these masked men, and on past these defiant girls, and having had enough of this nonsense, headed for, you guessed it – the Mediterraneum Cafe.
I hadn’t even started my coffee, when someone ran in and yelled that a helicopter had just flown over and gassed campus. We had heard helicopters before, but they were usually news helicopters, so no one even looked up after a while. It became apparent that the reason the soldiers had been told to wear their gas masks was because the officers knew the helicopter gassing was on its way and we were its targets. I was three blocks from the actual gas when it came, and because of the prevailing winds, never even got a whiff.
When the authorities tell you not to worry, start worrying, but when they tell you to worry, start running!
Sunday I got up early and went to the Mediterraneum Cafe on the infamous 2400 block of Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, CA. Over the course of the day I met up with a considerable portion of my old Med friends from previous years and had a more or less typically great time. All the usual frictions came to a sparkle and flame, and raw emotions were experienced by a few people. But, along with the various pains, challenges and rejections there was a genuine camaraderie in the midst of the repartee.
My close friend of decades, Sara was singing Verdi’s Requiem at the First Congregational church at 2 PM so I planned to get there early for a good seat. But my voice was getting hoarse from talking so very much, so I decided to take a short walk and look at the new huge six-story student housing being constructed just around the corner on Haste Street. As I walked past People’s Park it became apparent that a lot of farming was going on, so I stepped over to watch the progress for a few minutes. I got into a conversation with Michael Delacour, Berkeley’s foremost radical at present. I have known him from a distance for decades, but I don’t remember ever speaking to him. Michael and I got into an extended conversation, which went on for over an hour and I ended up being late to Sara’s concert. I departed our conversation with a great respect for what Michael is doing to make People’s Park and the world in general into a better place. He is continuing the traditional hand farming of People’s Park with the intention of preventing the University from digesting it into their vast tentacled empire.
The whole University of California versus the local people is a huge complicated subject, which achieved a continuing national news story from the 1960s to this day. The fight continues on this tiny plot of ground – sacred to many people – while a University construction crane actually extends directly over this garden. The central focus of this decades-long struggle of the people of Berkeley with the people of California has been on People’s Park and the park is centered on this garden. That park has been tightly associated with Michael Delacour from the beginning to this day nearly a half a century later.
I remember having a conversation in the Med one afternoon, many years ago with Big Bill Miller about what to do about the University taking over the wild chunk of land that had spontaneously become a dirt parking lot. Bill and another person, whom I don’t remember—it might have been Michael, because he and Bill were housemates at that time—were discussing creating a cause célèbre for the parking lot by some sort of appropriate radical action. I am not a radical, but I have done a lot of things that many average people would consider surprising! My motivation has been to do what’s right for humanity, in general. In that particular conversation I was discussing farming because I come from a farm family; I spent nearly all my summers on the family farm until age thirty. I suggested that if people were cultivating the parking lot as a farm then people would soon identify with that land as being theirs. I know that feeling because I had those gut sensations about our family farm.
They thought the farm idea was good, so someone who lived close by got a couple of hand tools, such as shovels, and we started digging within a few minutes. It was intended as a short gardening trench to plant vegetables and flowers. I dug the first shovel full and went along with them until it was about twenty feet long, and then went back to the Med for more coffee and conversation. Those people were infinitely more dedicated to action than I ever was, so over the next few days, they got a lot of people involved in pick-and-shovel work.
When I passed by that location today, almost fifty years later, there were people still growing produce on that land. Actually, it is a rather small urban garden, rather poor compared to the urban garden in Hollingshead park in Bend, Oregon, near my new home. But the People’s Park garden has had a terrific impact on the history of Berkeley and the US and possibly the whole world. This little garden is a very small fist raised in opposition to the oppressive forces of corporate society, but it is effective. I have little energy for those kinds of activities myself, but I do respect those who do fight to maintain our freedoms intact.
If we don’t support our idealistic fighters, our freedoms will evaporate in the night.
( Update 2022-12-03. The post above implies that I barely knew Michael Delacour, and yet he drove up to my house in Bend, Oregon, from Berkeley, and I made this video of us browsing through a book about Berkeley. I helped get that piece of property made into a park for fifty years instead of another tentacle of the University of California with the power of public domain to confiscate private property.
Since that time, I was the only person in the public that spoke for creating the three-acre Goodrich Pasture Park. Within a few minutes, after I spoke, the Park Board voted to buy the property, and now there is a beautiful park with a pleasant playground and walking path that gets used almost constantly, weather permitting, and even when it isn’t.)