Opening Reception and Talk for The Battle for People's Park

Fri, September 20, 2019, 6:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.: Opening Receiption and Talk on The Battle for People's Park by Tom Dalzell.

Reception from 6:00 - 7:00 pm.

Talk featuring Photographer Nacio Jan Brown, Activist Judy Gumbo and book Author Tom Dalzell from 7:00-8:30 p.m.

At North Gate Hall, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.



The Battle for People's Park, Berkeley 1969 commemorates the 50th anniversary of one of the most searing conflicts that closed out the tumultuous 1960s in an exhibition of remarkable photographs. 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 and the resulting struggle saw hundreds arrested, martial law declared, and the National Guard was ordered by then-Governor Ronald Reagan to crush the uprising and to occupy the entire city.

For a period of ten years, beginning in the mid-1960s, Nacio Jan Brown photographed virtually all of the major anti-war and social protest movement activities in the San Francisco Bay Area. His photographs were published widely in the “underground” press of the times. His work is in the collections of The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, The International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, and the Library of Congress as well as the collections of numerous private collectors.

Berkeley-based author Tom Dalzell moved to California to work with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers in 1971. He worked for the UFW legal department until 1980. Since 1981 he has worked for Local 1245 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, first as an attorney and since 2006 as the elected leader of the union. He has written extensively on slang, and since 2013 has blogged about Berkeley’s quirky material culture for his website Quirky Berkeley and for Berkeleyside.

Judy Gumbo is an original Yippie. The Yippies levitated the Pentagon to protest the War in Vietnam, brought the New York City Stock Exchange to a halt to satirize greed and ran a pig named Pigasus for President at the 1968 Democratic Convention. With her late husband Stew Albert, Judy helped build and defend People’s Park. Concurrently, she helped start one of Berkeley’s original women’s groups, who organized a march to People’s Park on May 15 to demand women’s equality and liberation. The women’s march disappeared into police violence against all those protesting the destruction of People’s Park.

Free and open to the public.
Seats are first come, first served.


Event Contacts
Julie Hirano - juliehirano@berkeley.edu
Press Inquiries - journalism@berkeley.edu

Support the Next Generation of Documentary Photographers
While photography was once a specialized art relegated only to highly skilled photojournalists, it is now an indispensable skill practiced in some form by nearly all our graduate students. In 2014, Berkeley Journalism's Center for Photography joined with the estate of photographer Jim Marshall— among the most renowned and prolific photographers of the 20th century— to launch the Jim Marshall Fellowships in Photography. Our goal is to raise $500,000 in funds dedicated to supporting the visual arts at the School. Donate online today at: http://givetocal.berkeley.edu/jimmarshallfellowships. Read about our 4th annual Marshall Fellow Drew Costley here.

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Parking
Metered street parking is available in the commercial blocks of Euclid Ave, Hearst Ave and Ridge Rd.

ADA Accessibility
The ADA accessible entrance to North Gate Hall is located in the inner courtyard.