Original 1969 Berkeley People's Park Leaflets Found

One of several People's Park leaflets unearthed after 43 years.

Back in 1969 I was a senior at U.C. Berkeley and a member of the People's Park Negotiating Committee. My role was to help write and print the leaflets that were used to call people to demonstrations and inform them of the status of the Park.

The Gestetner mimeograph machine was at my house, along with a scanner (new at the time) that allowed us to create mimeograph stencils from original layouts. I kept the original layouts in a box that was misplaced, but just unearthed when my wife cleaned up a storage room.

These aren't leaflets, but actual camera-ready-copy that were used to create the leaflets, My plan is to donate them to a museum or a library (suggestions are welcome) but, in the mean time, I thought people might enjoy looking at them. They were typed on my Smith Corona electric typewriter and, for headlines, I used press-on letters.

The "negotiating committee" was the student and community group that organized the demonstrations and attempted to negotiate with the University of California about the fate of this 2.8 acre piece of land that the University wanted to turn into a parking lot. For more, see this on Wikipedia.

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Comments

[Lincoln Cushing]

06:17 PM on 02/04/2012

I interviewed Larry around 1973 when he was the head of the Student Organizing Project at U Mass Amherst - they had a great poster. I'm currently mounting a giant exhibition of 1960s - and on, until now - posters about social change at the Oakland Museum of California. And the collection does include "Who owns people's park"...

[Marcella Murphy]

08:45 PM on 01/27/2012

I have been looking for years for an editorial titled "Who Owns People's Park. Do you have that?

[TRex86]

08:34 AM on 01/25/2012

From People's Park to Officer Pike I hope that we aging Boomers have nowcome full circle and reunited with our dormant ideals. May the wisdom of experience transform our youthful enthusiasm into effective action to save this country from the plutocracy. Peace.
TR (UCLA '65)

[wesleypresley]

08:24 AM on 01/25/2012

Cool

[TakeSake]

07:44 AM on 01/25/2012

The dynamic, rough-hewn style is missing from these "square" days of Illustrator, Photoshop, and Word.

[Suzan Cooke]

01:41 AM on 01/25/2012

I provided the mimeograph stencils some of those flyers were printed with.
I obtained a bunch of stencils and passed them on to the organizers including Mike, Stew and Judy.

[Mark Addison]

08:17 PM on 01/24/2012

Fond memories! I went to UC Berkeley in the '80s and I can report that Larry and his gang indeed saved People's Park from parking lot development. But its location several blocks away from the campus and not visible from Telegraph kept it from ever becoming a true community park. Well... let me re-phrase that... it never became a park for the student or local resident communities, but it did become a park for the growing homeless community. Still, Larry should be proud that the lore of the 1969 People's Park protests lives on at Berkeley -- passed down as oral folklore from student cladd to student class. You are part of history, Larry!

[Larry Magid]

11:52 PM on 01/24/2012

Thanks Mark. That was very kind of you.