Photograph by Ted Streshinsky, “People’s Park Riots, National Guard and Protester”
 
John Lennon and The Beatles were synchronous with most of the pivotal points of my life in the sixties. They weren’t leaders, they weren’t my gurus, they were my companions, my spiritual allies on a magical and very mysterious trip. And John was the one I felt closest to. I could relate to his peace and love approach, but I also deeply felt his angrier side, his revolutionary spirit.

(The following is an edited excerpt from a rough draft of my memoirs)

The People’s Park situation had gotten out of control. Reagan declared Martial Law.

On May 29, 1969 John Lennon called the People’s Park protest organizers (UCB students) twice to offer his support. It was the day before a major march was to be held and there was a lot of tension in the air. The calls were broadcast on KPFA radio. Lennon’s exhortations to stay cool could be heard from radios perched on window sills throughout the city:

“There’s no cause worth losing your life for, there isn’t any path worth getting shot for and you can do better by moving on to another city. Don’t move about if it aggravates the pigs, and don’t get hassled by the cops, and don’t play their games. I know it’s hard, Christ you know it ain’t easy, you know how hard it can be man, so
what? Everything’s hard. It’s better to have it hard than to not have it at all.

Entice them, entice them! Con them-you’ve got the brains, you can do it. You can make it, man! We can make it together. We can get it together!”

It was almost two weeks after Bloody Thursday, but the streets were still crawling with National Guard, cops in riot gear, and military tanks. It looked like Prague 1968. I was in the middle of it all. I decided to leave town. I was a peacenik and didn’t want anything to do with the violence that was erupting all around me, most of it instigated by jackbooted cops from Oakland.

My girlfriend Vicki and I were walking down University Ave. toward a freeway onramp when a cop car, sirens wailing, screeched up along side us and a bunch of bulls spilled out wildly waving their nightsticks and knocked us to the ground. They ripped the backpacks off our bodies and tore them open, scattering our stuff all over the sidewalk. Instead of bombs or guns or whatever the fuck they were looking for, they ended up with a few bags of granola, dried fruit and brown rice. As the cops were piling back into their car, a van pulled up to the curb and its longhair driver shouted for us to “get in, get in!”  We threw our backpacks and ourselves into the van and slammed the door shut.  This infuriated the cops. They leaped back out of their car and started slamming billy clubs upside the van as we sped off. The cops were out of their fucking minds, rabid Keystone Kops gone mad with the smell of hippie blood.

I decided not to leave Berkeley but to stay and join my neighbors in protest of the cop riot and the occupation of our city by Reagan’s goon squads. This was happening on my turf and I had to be involved. It wasn’t going away. And avoiding it was a chickenshit approach that I couldn’t live with.

On May 30th over 30,000 people (one third of Berkeley’s population) marched to People’s Park to save it from destruction. Vicki and I were among them. The National Guard and the cops were out in full force. But, they were outnumbered and overwhelmed. Young girls slid flowers down the muzzles of bayoneted rifles and a small airplane flew over the city trailing a banner that read, “Let A Thousand Parks Bloom.”

The park was surrounded by a fence. Inside the fence were hundreds of young Guardsmen. Outside the fence were thousands of peaceful protesters. Some of the Guardsmen looked terrified; others were smiling and flashing peace symbols. Community leaders and organizers were making speeches from a couple of flatbed trucks. Music played. At one point a bunch of us jumped up on one of the flatbeds, took off our clothes and started dancing. We were chanting to the soldiers inside the fence to “join us, join us”. Most of them looked like they were ready to leap the fence and do exactly that. Seeing a bunch of cute hippie chicks naked and offering their bodies to them was mighty tempting to those horny young guys, some of whom were actually UCB students who had joined the guard to avoid going to Vietnam. They knew they were on the wrong side of the fence. I later read that several of them did end up joining the protesters and were severely punished for having done so. The following week, a picture of me dancing nude on that flatbed truck appeared on the cover of the Berkeley Barb. Rocking out with my cock out!  Mao said “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”  I had a different approach.

Two years later, People’s Park was resurrected. It exists to this day. Power to the people and their parks.

Here’s a wonderful video clip that includes John’s phone call to KPFA.