San Francisco Good Times: Counterculture Newspaper DVD, MP4, USB Drive
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The Extraordinary 1977 Documentary Film About One Of History's Most Controversial Counterculture Underground Newspapers, Presented In The Highest DVD Quality MPG Video Format Of 9.1 MBPS As An Archival Quality All Regions Format DVD, MP4 Video Download Or USB Flash Drive! #SanFranciscoGoodTimes #GoodTimes #SanFranciscoExpressTimes #ExpressTimes #MarvinGarson #BobNovick #Newspapers #UndergroundNewspapers #GoodTimesCommune #DavidLanceGoines #AliceWaters #ToddGitlin #GreilMarcus #PaulWilliams #SandyDarlington #MarjorieHeins #JeffreyBlankfort #NacioJanBrown #RobertAltman #Jaxon #RonCobb #SanFranciscoStateUniversity #LennyHeller #BerkeleyGuns #1968DemocraticNationalConvention #1968DNC #FBIInfiltration #RichardGaikowski #ZodiacKiller #SanFrancisco #RichardNixon #SanFrancisco #CommunityActivism #Communes #BlackPanthers #HueyNewton #Nudity #PublicNudity #MarijuanaSmoking #BillGraham #SweetMarijuana #PeteTownsend #Who #TheWho #PeoplesPark #UOCBerkeley #LandSquatting #Squatting #Herbiculture #Astrology #TheBerkeleyAstrologyGuild #BerkeleyAstrologyGuild #TheFloatingLotusOperaCompany #FloatingLotusOperaCompany #TimothyLeary #PlacentaEating #SanFranciscoStreetLife #StreetLife #Happenings #SanFranciscoHappenings #Prison #OppositionToUSInvolvementInTheVietnamWar #AntiVietnamWarMovement #Protest #AntiWarMovement #Counterculture #Hippies #PeaceMovements #60s #The60s #1960s #The1960s #Sixties #TheSixties #UOCBerkeleyHistory #BerkeleyHistory #UOCHistory #RonaldReagan #StudentUnrest #DVD #VideoDownload #MP4 #USBFlashDrive
To quote the opening of this film: "As the war in Vietnam dragged on and Richard Nixon was elected to his first term as President, a group of people in San Francisco began publishing an "underground" newspaper. The paper was called the San Francisco Good Times in the belief that out of the ferment of dissent a new community based on new ways of living and cooperation was taking shape. The paper was to be the voice of this community and a motive force in its creation. This film is a chronicle of people who worked on the paper and events they lived through and covered. The people who worked together to produce the paper went on to form a commune. In November 1972 the Good Times commune stopped publishing the newspaper.". Highlights include a Black Panther demonstration in support of Huey Newton; stills of public nudity and marijuana smoking; an interview with Bill Graham; outtake from the song "Sweet Marijuana"; Pete Townsend of "The Who" interview; the "People's Park" land squatting experiment that ended in armed confrontation; herbiculture; astrological column written by The Berkeley Astrology Guild; performance outtakes from The Floating Lotus Opera Company; interview with Timothy Leary; the formation of the Good Times commune, where it is learned that members ate the placenta of a child born to the commune (!); San Francisco street life & happenings; members of Good Times arrested and put in prison; more (1977, 57:32).
San Francisco Express Times was a counterculture tabloid underground newspaper edited by Marvin Garson and published weekly in San Francisco, California from January 24, 1968, to March 25, 1969, for a total of 62 issues, covering and promoting radical politics, rock music, arts and progressive culture in the Bay Area. Starting in April 1969 the San Francisco Express Times changed its name to Good Times, publishing under that title, with a substantially different editorial policy, until August 1972. It was a member of the Underground Press Syndicate, and sold for 15 cents. Marvin Garson was a graduate of the University of California and veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, where he edited an FSM newsletter, Wooden Shoe, along with his wife Barbara Garson. He started the Express Times with co-founder Bob Novick and participation by David Lance Goines, Alice Waters and others. Regular contributors included Todd Gitlin, Greil Marcus, Paul Williams, Sandy Darlington, and Marjorie Heins. Staff photographers were Jeffrey Blankfort followed by Nacio Jan Brown and Robert Altman. Artwork was provided by Jaxon, along with the syndicated editorial cartoons of Ron Cobb. During the year of its existence highlights included extensive on-the-scene coverage of student rioting and the prolonged strike at San Francisco State University, and Lenny Heller's serialized novel of guerrilla warfare in the United States, Berkeley Guns. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that the Express Times was one of a number of underground newspapers successfully infiltrated by the FBI, which had a paid informant on the staff. In December 1968 editor Marvin Garson spent 20 days in jail in Chicago as a result of his participation as a journalist in a police and protester skirmish during the Democratic National Convention in August. The History Channel's 2009 television program MysteryQuest speculated that one member of the editorial collective of Good Times, a resident of the Good Times Commune named Richard Gaikowski (1936-2004), was a possible suspect in the unsolved San Francisco Zodiac Killer case.
May 15, 1969: Freedom Of Speech: Freedom Of Speech In The United States: Counterculture Of The 1960s: Student Rights: The New Left: Student Rights In Higher Education: Student Protests: The 1960s Berkeley Protests: The Free Speech Movement (FSM): People's Park (People's Park Berkeley): The 1969 People's Park Protest (Bloody Thursday): -- The most violent confrontation in the history of the University Of California begins in the early morning of a Thursday when, at the request of Berkeley mayor Wallace J. S. Johnson, local police clear the People's Park, an impromptu student park owned by the University of California At Berkeley, arresting three people who refused to leave. University work crews arrived later, destroying many of the changes that had been made to the park subsequent to its takeoever from the university, and erect an 8-foot (2.4-metre)-tall perimeter chain-link wire fence around the site, sparking a riot in which the Berkeley Police Department, the California Highway Patrol, Alameda County sheriff deputies and ultimately California National Guard officers called by California Governor Ronald Reagan clash with students of the Free Speech Movement, anti-war protestors and members of the counterculture that killed, maimed and wounded students, innocent bystanders and local residents. A mural near the park, painted by Berkeley artist O'Brien Thiele and lawyer/artist Osha Neumann, depicts the shooting of James Rector, a student who died from shotgun wounds inflicted by the police during the riot. These events are comprehensively covered in the counterculture film "San Francsisco Good Times", sold by EarthStation1 MediaOutlet. Located off Telegraph Avenue, bounded by Haste and Bowditch streets and Dwight Way, near the University of California, Berkeley, the Southside neighborhood park was created during the radical political activism of the late 1960s. The City of Berkeley declared it a historical and cultural landmark in 1984. Although open to all, it is mainly a daytime sanctuary for Berkeley's large homeless population who, along with others, receive meals from East Bay Food Not Bombs. Nearby residents, and those who try to use the park for recreation, sometimes experience conflict with the homeless people. While the land upon which the park was located, then and now, is the property of the University of California, People's Park has operated since the early 1970s as a free public park before it was closed off in January 2024, pursuant to a Berkeley's plans to build 1,100 new units of student housing and 125 units of supportive housing for homeless people on the site, plans backed by the Berkeley City Council, Mayor Jesse Arreguin, Berkeley's California Assembly representative Buffy Wicks and California Governor Gavin Newsom, and supported by 62% of UC Berkeley students according to a survey; however, supporters of the park have delayed those plans through opposition including protests, lawsuits, alleged sabotage of construction equipment, and overnight occupations of the site. In 1956, the Regents of the University of California decided that they wanted to buy a certain 2.8-acre (11,000-square-meter) plot of land, which contained houses at the time, for future development into student housing, parking, and offices as part of the university's long range development plan. At the time, public funds were lacking to buy the land, and the plan was shelved until June 1967, when the university acquired 1.3B USD to buy the land. The land was purchased through the process of eminent domain. The short-term goal was to create athletic fields with student housing being a longer-range goal. Bulldozers arrived in February 1968 and began demolition of the residences. However, the university ran out of development funds, leaving the lot only partially cleared of demolition debris and rubble for 14 months. At the time, student activist Wendy Schlesinger and Michael Delacour (a former defense contractor employee who had become an anti-war activist) had become attached to the area, as they had been using it as a clandestine rendezvous hideout for a secret romantic affair. The pair presented a plan for developing the university-owned land into a public park. This plan was approved by the attendees, but not by the university. Michael Delacour stated, "We wanted a free speech area that wasn't controlled like Sproul Plaza [the plaza at the south entrance to UC Berkeley] was. It was another place to organize, another place to have a rally. The park was secondary." The university's Free Speech microphone was available to all students, with few (if any) restrictions on speech. The construction of the park involved many of the same people and politics as the 1964 Free Speech Movement. On April 13, 1969, local merchants and residents decided to develop a vacant, unused lot owned by the Berkeley campus into a public park, a "Power to the People Park". Construction started on Sunday April 20 and continued for weeks, beginning when more than 100 people arrived at the site to begin building the park. Local landscape architect Jon Read and many others contributed trees, flowers, shrubs, and sod. Eventually, about 1,000 people became directly involved, with many more donating money and materials. However, on April 28, Berkeley vice chancellor Earl Cheit announced that the university planned to build a soccer field on the site, though he promised he would notify park supporters before construction. On May 13, Berkeley chancellor Roger Heyns announced that the university would soon erect a fence around the park to begin construction. Beginning at noon on Bloody Thursday, about 3,000 people appeared in Sproul Plaza at the nearby Berkeley campus for a rally, the original purpose of which was to discuss the Arab–Israeli conflict. Several people spoke; then, Michael Lerner ceded the Free Speech platform to Daniel Mark Siegel, the student body president of Associated Students of the University of California, because students were concerned about the fencing-off and destruction of the park. Siegel said later that he never intended to precipitate a riot; however, when he shouted "Let's take the park!," police turned off the sound system. The crowd responded spontaneously, moving down Telegraph Avenue toward People's Park chanting, "We want the park!" Arriving in the early afternoon, protesters were met by the remaining 159 Berkeley and university police officers assigned to guard the fenced-off park site. The protesters opened a fire hydrant, several hundred protesters attempted to tear down the fence and threw bottles, rocks, and bricks at the officers, and then the officers fired tear gas canisters. A major confrontation ensued between police and the crowd, which had grown to 4,000. Initial attempts by the police to disperse the protesters were not successful, and more officers were called in from surrounding cities. At least one car was set on fire. A large group of protesters confronted a small group of sheriff's deputies who turned and ran. The crowd of protesters let out a cheer and briefly chased after them until the sheriff's deputies ran into a used car facility. The crowd then turned around and ran back to a patrol car which they overturned and set on fire. The crowds had swelled to approximately 6,000 people. Officers in full riot gear obscured their badges to avoid being identified and headed into the crowds with nightsticks swinging. As the protesters retreated, the Alameda County Sheriff's deputies pursued them several blocks down Telegraph Avenue as far as Willard Junior High School at Derby Street, firing tear gas canisters and buckshot at the crowd's backs as they fled. Authorities initially claimed that only birdshot had been used as shotgun ammunition. When physicians provided pellets removed from the wounded as evidence that buckshot had been used, Alameda County sheriff Frank Madigan justified the use of shotguns loaded with lethal buckshot by stating, "The choice was essentially this: to use shotguns - because we didn't have the available manpower - or retreat and abandon the City of Berkeley to the mob." Madigan also stated that some of his deputies, many of whom were Vietnam War veterans, had been overly aggressive in their pursuit of the protesters, acting "as though they were Viet Cong". Alameda County sheriff deputies also used shotguns to fire at people sitting on the roof at the Telegraph Repertory Cinema. James Rector was visiting friends in Berkeley and watching from the roof of Granma Books when he was shot by police; he died on May 19. The Alamada County Coroner's report listed cause of death as "shock and hemorrhage due to multiple shotgun wounds and perforation of the aorta". Reagan conceded that Rector was probably shot by police but justified the bearing of firearms, saying, "I think it is being very naive to assume that you should send anyone into that kind of conflict with a fly swatter. He's got to have an appropriate weapon." The University of California Police Department (UCPD) said Rector threw steel rebar down onto the police; however, Time magazine claimed that Rector was a bystander, not a protester. A carpenter, Alan Blanchard, was permanently blinded by a load of birdshot directly to his face. At least 128 Berkeley residents were admitted to local hospitals for head trauma, shotgun wounds, and other serious injuries inflicted by police. The actual number of seriously wounded varies as many of the injured did not seek treatment at local hospitals to avoid being arrested. Local medical students and interns organized volunteer mobile first-aid teams to help protesters and bystanders injured by buckshot, nightsticks, or tear gas. One local hospital reported two students wounded with large caliber rifles as well. Contemporaneous news reports stated that 50 people were injured, including five police officers. Some local hospital logs indicate that 19 police officers or Alameda County Sheriff's deputies were treated for minor injuries; none were hospitalized. However, the UCPD states that 111 police officers were injured, including California Highway Patrol officer Albert Bradley, who was knifed in the chest. During the People's Park incident, National Guard troops were stationed in front of Berkeley's empty lots to prevent protesters from planting flowers, shrubs, or trees. Young hippie women taunted and teased the troops, on one occasion handing out marijuana-laced brownies and lemonade spiked with LSD. According to commanding major general Glenn C. Ames, "LSD had been injected into fudge, oranges and apple juice which they received from young hippie-type females." Some protesters, their faces hidden with scarves, challenged police and National Guard troops; hundreds were arrested. That evening, Reagan declared a state of emergency in Berkeley and sent in 2,700 California National Guard troops. The Berkeley City Council voted 8–1 against the decision. For two weeks, the streets of Berkeley were patrolled by the troops, who broke up even small demonstrations with tear gas. Reagan was steadfast and unapologetic, saying, "Once the dogs of war have been unleashed, you must expect things will happen, and that people, being human, will make mistakes on both sides." Demonstrations continued for several days after Bloody Thursday. A crowd of approximately 400 were driven from Sproul Plaza to Telegraph Avenue by tear gas deployed by officers on May 19. On May 20, National Guard helicopters flew over the Berkeley campus, dispensing airborne tear gas over protestors that winds dispersed over a wide area, affecting bystanders and people in nearby facilities, including a hospital; this was one of the largest deployments of tear gas during the Vietnam era protests, and an action which Reagan would later admit might have been "a tactical mistake". On Thursday, May 22, 1969, 482 demonstrators were arrested and charged with unlawful assembly, bringing the total number of arrests near 800. Showing solidarity with students, 177 faculty members said that they were "unwilling to teach until peace has been achieved by the removal of police and troops". On May 23, by 642–95, the Berkeley faculty senate endorsed a proposal by the College of Environmental Designs to have the park become the centerpiece of an experiment in community-generated design. In a separate university referendum, UC Berkeley students voted 12,719–2,175 in favor of keeping the park; the turnout represented about half of the registered student body. Although Heyns supported a proposal to lease the site to the city as a community park, the Board of Regents voted to proceed with the construction of married student apartments in June 1969. By May 26, the city-wide curfew and ban on gatherings had been lifted, although 200 members of the National Guard remained to guard the fenced-off park, anticipating unrest from a march planned for May 30. Reagan pledged that "whatever force is necessary will be on hand", although protest leaders declared the march would be non-violent. Demonstrators engaged in shop-ins, park-ins, and other non-violent tactics to counter the police action. On May 30, 30,000 Berkeley citizens secured a city permit and marched without incident past the barricaded People's Park to protest Reagan's occupation of their city, the death of Rector, the blinding of Blanchard, and the many injuries inflicted by police. Young women slid flowers down the muzzles of bayoneted National Guard rifles, and a small airplane flew over the city trailing a banner that read, "Let A Thousand Parks Bloom". Nevertheless, over the next few weeks National Guard troops broke up any assemblies of more than four people who congregated for any purpose on the streets of Berkeley, day or night. In the early summer, troops deployed in downtown Berkeley surrounded several thousand protesters and bystanders, emptying businesses, restaurants, and retail outlets of their owners and customers, and arresting them en masse. The Black Panther, the official newspaper of the Black Panther Party, stated in an issue on fascism that "[The pigs] tear gassed and beat up a lot of innocent people ... The chemical that they used, is the same kind of chemical that the U.S. Imperialists are using against the Vietnamese people." The Washington Post wrote of the incident in an editorial: "[T]he indiscriminate gassing of a thousand people not at the time in violation of any law seems more than a little excessive." The editorial also criticized legislation before the U.S. House that would have "cut off Federal aid to universities which fail to head off campus disorders". The late 1960s saw student protests across the United States, such as the 1968 Columbia University and Democratic National Convention protests. On April 3, 1969, students at Stanford University protested war-related research by occupying Encina Hall. California governor Ronald Reagan had been publicly critical of university administrators for tolerating student demonstrations at the University of California, Berkeley. He had received popular support for his 1966 gubernatorial campaign promise to crack down on what the public perceived as a generally lax attitude at California's public universities. In the U.S. House of Representatives, the Higher Education Protection and Freedom of Expression Act of 1969 was introduced in response to mass protests and demonstrations at universities and colleges across the nation. The bill would have required colleges and universities to file plans of action for dealing with campus unrest with the U.S. commissioner of education, and would have given the institutions the power to suspend federal aid to students convicted, in court or by the university, of violating campus rules in connection with student riots. The bill also proposed that any school that did not file such plans would lose federal funding. Reagan supported the federal legislation; in a March 19 statement, he urged the U.S. Congress to "be equally concerned about those who commit violence who are not receiving aid". On May 20, U.S. attorney general John N. Mitchell advised the committee that existing law was "adequate". On June 13, Reagan defended his actions in a televised speech delivered from San Francisco; a small sampling of public input (101 telegrams received by the governor's office after the broadcast) suggests that the public was supportive of the governor's actions. In an address before the California Council of Growers on April 7, 1970, Reagan defended his policies for dealing with campus protests: "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with. No more appeasement." Berkeley Tribe editors decided to issue this quote in large type on the cover of its next edition.
The Extraordinary 1977 Documentary Film About One Of History's Most Controversial Counterculture Underground Newspapers, Presented In The Highest DVD Quality MPG Video Format Of 9.1 MBPS As An Archival Quality All Regions Format DVD, MP4 Video Download Or USB Flash Drive! #SanFranciscoGoodTimes #GoodTimes #SanFranciscoExpressTimes #ExpressTimes #MarvinGarson #BobNovick #Newspapers #UndergroundNewspapers #GoodTimesCommune #DavidLanceGoines #AliceWaters #ToddGitlin #GreilMarcus #PaulWilliams #SandyDarlington #MarjorieHeins #JeffreyBlankfort #NacioJanBrown #RobertAltman #Jaxon #RonCobb #SanFranciscoStateUniversity #LennyHeller #BerkeleyGuns #1968DemocraticNationalConvention #1968DNC #FBIInfiltration #RichardGaikowski #ZodiacKiller #SanFrancisco #RichardNixon #SanFrancisco #CommunityActivism #Communes #BlackPanthers #HueyNewton #Nudity #PublicNudity #MarijuanaSmoking #BillGraham #SweetMarijuana #PeteTownsend #Who #TheWho #PeoplesPark #UOCBerkeley #LandSquatting #Squatting #Herbiculture #Astrology #TheBerkeleyAstrologyGuild #BerkeleyAstrologyGuild #TheFloatingLotusOperaCompany #FloatingLotusOperaCompany #TimothyLeary #PlacentaEating #SanFranciscoStreetLife #StreetLife #Happenings #SanFranciscoHappenings #Prison #OppositionToUSInvolvementInTheVietnamWar #AntiVietnamWarMovement #Protest #AntiWarMovement #Counterculture #Hippies #PeaceMovements #60s #The60s #1960s #The1960s #Sixties #TheSixties #UOCBerkeleyHistory #BerkeleyHistory #UOCHistory #RonaldReagan #StudentUnrest #DVD #VideoDownload #MP4 #USBFlashDrive
To quote the opening of this film: "As the war in Vietnam dragged on and Richard Nixon was elected to his first term as President, a group of people in San Francisco began publishing an "underground" newspaper. The paper was called the San Francisco Good Times in the belief that out of the ferment of dissent a new community based on new ways of living and cooperation was taking shape. The paper was to be the voice of this community and a motive force in its creation. This film is a chronicle of people who worked on the paper and events they lived through and covered. The people who worked together to produce the paper went on to form a commune. In November 1972 the Good Times commune stopped publishing the newspaper.". Highlights include a Black Panther demonstration in support of Huey Newton; stills of public nudity and marijuana smoking; an interview with Bill Graham; outtake from the song "Sweet Marijuana"; Pete Townsend of "The Who" interview; the "People's Park" land squatting experiment that ended in armed confrontation; herbiculture; astrological column written by The Berkeley Astrology Guild; performance outtakes from The Floating Lotus Opera Company; interview with Timothy Leary; the formation of the Good Times commune, where it is learned that members ate the placenta of a child born to the commune (!); San Francisco street life & happenings; members of Good Times arrested and put in prison; more (1977, 57:32).
San Francisco Express Times was a counterculture tabloid underground newspaper edited by Marvin Garson and published weekly in San Francisco, California from January 24, 1968, to March 25, 1969, for a total of 62 issues, covering and promoting radical politics, rock music, arts and progressive culture in the Bay Area. Starting in April 1969 the San Francisco Express Times changed its name to Good Times, publishing under that title, with a substantially different editorial policy, until August 1972. It was a member of the Underground Press Syndicate, and sold for 15 cents. Marvin Garson was a graduate of the University of California and veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, where he edited an FSM newsletter, Wooden Shoe, along with his wife Barbara Garson. He started the Express Times with co-founder Bob Novick and participation by David Lance Goines, Alice Waters and others. Regular contributors included Todd Gitlin, Greil Marcus, Paul Williams, Sandy Darlington, and Marjorie Heins. Staff photographers were Jeffrey Blankfort followed by Nacio Jan Brown and Robert Altman. Artwork was provided by Jaxon, along with the syndicated editorial cartoons of Ron Cobb. During the year of its existence highlights included extensive on-the-scene coverage of student rioting and the prolonged strike at San Francisco State University, and Lenny Heller's serialized novel of guerrilla warfare in the United States, Berkeley Guns. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that the Express Times was one of a number of underground newspapers successfully infiltrated by the FBI, which had a paid informant on the staff. In December 1968 editor Marvin Garson spent 20 days in jail in Chicago as a result of his participation as a journalist in a police and protester skirmish during the Democratic National Convention in August. The History Channel's 2009 television program MysteryQuest speculated that one member of the editorial collective of Good Times, a resident of the Good Times Commune named Richard Gaikowski (1936-2004), was a possible suspect in the unsolved San Francisco Zodiac Killer case.
May 15, 1969: Freedom Of Speech: Freedom Of Speech In The United States: Counterculture Of The 1960s: Student Rights: The New Left: Student Rights In Higher Education: Student Protests: The 1960s Berkeley Protests: The Free Speech Movement (FSM): People's Park (People's Park Berkeley): The 1969 People's Park Protest (Bloody Thursday): -- The most violent confrontation in the history of the University Of California begins in the early morning of a Thursday when, at the request of Berkeley mayor Wallace J. S. Johnson, local police clear the People's Park, an impromptu student park owned by the University of California At Berkeley, arresting three people who refused to leave. University work crews arrived later, destroying many of the changes that had been made to the park subsequent to its takeoever from the university, and erect an 8-foot (2.4-metre)-tall perimeter chain-link wire fence around the site, sparking a riot in which the Berkeley Police Department, the California Highway Patrol, Alameda County sheriff deputies and ultimately California National Guard officers called by California Governor Ronald Reagan clash with students of the Free Speech Movement, anti-war protestors and members of the counterculture that killed, maimed and wounded students, innocent bystanders and local residents. A mural near the park, painted by Berkeley artist O'Brien Thiele and lawyer/artist Osha Neumann, depicts the shooting of James Rector, a student who died from shotgun wounds inflicted by the police during the riot. These events are comprehensively covered in the counterculture film "San Francsisco Good Times", sold by EarthStation1 MediaOutlet. Located off Telegraph Avenue, bounded by Haste and Bowditch streets and Dwight Way, near the University of California, Berkeley, the Southside neighborhood park was created during the radical political activism of the late 1960s. The City of Berkeley declared it a historical and cultural landmark in 1984. Although open to all, it is mainly a daytime sanctuary for Berkeley's large homeless population who, along with others, receive meals from East Bay Food Not Bombs. Nearby residents, and those who try to use the park for recreation, sometimes experience conflict with the homeless people. While the land upon which the park was located, then and now, is the property of the University of California, People's Park has operated since the early 1970s as a free public park before it was closed off in January 2024, pursuant to a Berkeley's plans to build 1,100 new units of student housing and 125 units of supportive housing for homeless people on the site, plans backed by the Berkeley City Council, Mayor Jesse Arreguin, Berkeley's California Assembly representative Buffy Wicks and California Governor Gavin Newsom, and supported by 62% of UC Berkeley students according to a survey; however, supporters of the park have delayed those plans through opposition including protests, lawsuits, alleged sabotage of construction equipment, and overnight occupations of the site. In 1956, the Regents of the University of California decided that they wanted to buy a certain 2.8-acre (11,000-square-meter) plot of land, which contained houses at the time, for future development into student housing, parking, and offices as part of the university's long range development plan. At the time, public funds were lacking to buy the land, and the plan was shelved until June 1967, when the university acquired 1.3B USD to buy the land. The land was purchased through the process of eminent domain. The short-term goal was to create athletic fields with student housing being a longer-range goal. Bulldozers arrived in February 1968 and began demolition of the residences. However, the university ran out of development funds, leaving the lot only partially cleared of demolition debris and rubble for 14 months. At the time, student activist Wendy Schlesinger and Michael Delacour (a former defense contractor employee who had become an anti-war activist) had become attached to the area, as they had been using it as a clandestine rendezvous hideout for a secret romantic affair. The pair presented a plan for developing the university-owned land into a public park. This plan was approved by the attendees, but not by the university. Michael Delacour stated, "We wanted a free speech area that wasn't controlled like Sproul Plaza [the plaza at the south entrance to UC Berkeley] was. It was another place to organize, another place to have a rally. The park was secondary." The university's Free Speech microphone was available to all students, with few (if any) restrictions on speech. The construction of the park involved many of the same people and politics as the 1964 Free Speech Movement. On April 13, 1969, local merchants and residents decided to develop a vacant, unused lot owned by the Berkeley campus into a public park, a "Power to the People Park". Construction started on Sunday April 20 and continued for weeks, beginning when more than 100 people arrived at the site to begin building the park. Local landscape architect Jon Read and many others contributed trees, flowers, shrubs, and sod. Eventually, about 1,000 people became directly involved, with many more donating money and materials. However, on April 28, Berkeley vice chancellor Earl Cheit announced that the university planned to build a soccer field on the site, though he promised he would notify park supporters before construction. On May 13, Berkeley chancellor Roger Heyns announced that the university would soon erect a fence around the park to begin construction. Beginning at noon on Bloody Thursday, about 3,000 people appeared in Sproul Plaza at the nearby Berkeley campus for a rally, the original purpose of which was to discuss the Arab–Israeli conflict. Several people spoke; then, Michael Lerner ceded the Free Speech platform to Daniel Mark Siegel, the student body president of Associated Students of the University of California, because students were concerned about the fencing-off and destruction of the park. Siegel said later that he never intended to precipitate a riot; however, when he shouted "Let's take the park!," police turned off the sound system. The crowd responded spontaneously, moving down Telegraph Avenue toward People's Park chanting, "We want the park!" Arriving in the early afternoon, protesters were met by the remaining 159 Berkeley and university police officers assigned to guard the fenced-off park site. The protesters opened a fire hydrant, several hundred protesters attempted to tear down the fence and threw bottles, rocks, and bricks at the officers, and then the officers fired tear gas canisters. A major confrontation ensued between police and the crowd, which had grown to 4,000. Initial attempts by the police to disperse the protesters were not successful, and more officers were called in from surrounding cities. At least one car was set on fire. A large group of protesters confronted a small group of sheriff's deputies who turned and ran. The crowd of protesters let out a cheer and briefly chased after them until the sheriff's deputies ran into a used car facility. The crowd then turned around and ran back to a patrol car which they overturned and set on fire. The crowds had swelled to approximately 6,000 people. Officers in full riot gear obscured their badges to avoid being identified and headed into the crowds with nightsticks swinging. As the protesters retreated, the Alameda County Sheriff's deputies pursued them several blocks down Telegraph Avenue as far as Willard Junior High School at Derby Street, firing tear gas canisters and buckshot at the crowd's backs as they fled. Authorities initially claimed that only birdshot had been used as shotgun ammunition. When physicians provided pellets removed from the wounded as evidence that buckshot had been used, Alameda County sheriff Frank Madigan justified the use of shotguns loaded with lethal buckshot by stating, "The choice was essentially this: to use shotguns - because we didn't have the available manpower - or retreat and abandon the City of Berkeley to the mob." Madigan also stated that some of his deputies, many of whom were Vietnam War veterans, had been overly aggressive in their pursuit of the protesters, acting "as though they were Viet Cong". Alameda County sheriff deputies also used shotguns to fire at people sitting on the roof at the Telegraph Repertory Cinema. James Rector was visiting friends in Berkeley and watching from the roof of Granma Books when he was shot by police; he died on May 19. The Alamada County Coroner's report listed cause of death as "shock and hemorrhage due to multiple shotgun wounds and perforation of the aorta". Reagan conceded that Rector was probably shot by police but justified the bearing of firearms, saying, "I think it is being very naive to assume that you should send anyone into that kind of conflict with a fly swatter. He's got to have an appropriate weapon." The University of California Police Department (UCPD) said Rector threw steel rebar down onto the police; however, Time magazine claimed that Rector was a bystander, not a protester. A carpenter, Alan Blanchard, was permanently blinded by a load of birdshot directly to his face. At least 128 Berkeley residents were admitted to local hospitals for head trauma, shotgun wounds, and other serious injuries inflicted by police. The actual number of seriously wounded varies as many of the injured did not seek treatment at local hospitals to avoid being arrested. Local medical students and interns organized volunteer mobile first-aid teams to help protesters and bystanders injured by buckshot, nightsticks, or tear gas. One local hospital reported two students wounded with large caliber rifles as well. Contemporaneous news reports stated that 50 people were injured, including five police officers. Some local hospital logs indicate that 19 police officers or Alameda County Sheriff's deputies were treated for minor injuries; none were hospitalized. However, the UCPD states that 111 police officers were injured, including California Highway Patrol officer Albert Bradley, who was knifed in the chest. During the People's Park incident, National Guard troops were stationed in front of Berkeley's empty lots to prevent protesters from planting flowers, shrubs, or trees. Young hippie women taunted and teased the troops, on one occasion handing out marijuana-laced brownies and lemonade spiked with LSD. According to commanding major general Glenn C. Ames, "LSD had been injected into fudge, oranges and apple juice which they received from young hippie-type females." Some protesters, their faces hidden with scarves, challenged police and National Guard troops; hundreds were arrested. That evening, Reagan declared a state of emergency in Berkeley and sent in 2,700 California National Guard troops. The Berkeley City Council voted 8–1 against the decision. For two weeks, the streets of Berkeley were patrolled by the troops, who broke up even small demonstrations with tear gas. Reagan was steadfast and unapologetic, saying, "Once the dogs of war have been unleashed, you must expect things will happen, and that people, being human, will make mistakes on both sides." Demonstrations continued for several days after Bloody Thursday. A crowd of approximately 400 were driven from Sproul Plaza to Telegraph Avenue by tear gas deployed by officers on May 19. On May 20, National Guard helicopters flew over the Berkeley campus, dispensing airborne tear gas over protestors that winds dispersed over a wide area, affecting bystanders and people in nearby facilities, including a hospital; this was one of the largest deployments of tear gas during the Vietnam era protests, and an action which Reagan would later admit might have been "a tactical mistake". On Thursday, May 22, 1969, 482 demonstrators were arrested and charged with unlawful assembly, bringing the total number of arrests near 800. Showing solidarity with students, 177 faculty members said that they were "unwilling to teach until peace has been achieved by the removal of police and troops". On May 23, by 642–95, the Berkeley faculty senate endorsed a proposal by the College of Environmental Designs to have the park become the centerpiece of an experiment in community-generated design. In a separate university referendum, UC Berkeley students voted 12,719–2,175 in favor of keeping the park; the turnout represented about half of the registered student body. Although Heyns supported a proposal to lease the site to the city as a community park, the Board of Regents voted to proceed with the construction of married student apartments in June 1969. By May 26, the city-wide curfew and ban on gatherings had been lifted, although 200 members of the National Guard remained to guard the fenced-off park, anticipating unrest from a march planned for May 30. Reagan pledged that "whatever force is necessary will be on hand", although protest leaders declared the march would be non-violent. Demonstrators engaged in shop-ins, park-ins, and other non-violent tactics to counter the police action. On May 30, 30,000 Berkeley citizens secured a city permit and marched without incident past the barricaded People's Park to protest Reagan's occupation of their city, the death of Rector, the blinding of Blanchard, and the many injuries inflicted by police. Young women slid flowers down the muzzles of bayoneted National Guard rifles, and a small airplane flew over the city trailing a banner that read, "Let A Thousand Parks Bloom". Nevertheless, over the next few weeks National Guard troops broke up any assemblies of more than four people who congregated for any purpose on the streets of Berkeley, day or night. In the early summer, troops deployed in downtown Berkeley surrounded several thousand protesters and bystanders, emptying businesses, restaurants, and retail outlets of their owners and customers, and arresting them en masse. The Black Panther, the official newspaper of the Black Panther Party, stated in an issue on fascism that "[The pigs] tear gassed and beat up a lot of innocent people ... The chemical that they used, is the same kind of chemical that the U.S. Imperialists are using against the Vietnamese people." The Washington Post wrote of the incident in an editorial: "[T]he indiscriminate gassing of a thousand people not at the time in violation of any law seems more than a little excessive." The editorial also criticized legislation before the U.S. House that would have "cut off Federal aid to universities which fail to head off campus disorders". The late 1960s saw student protests across the United States, such as the 1968 Columbia University and Democratic National Convention protests. On April 3, 1969, students at Stanford University protested war-related research by occupying Encina Hall. California governor Ronald Reagan had been publicly critical of university administrators for tolerating student demonstrations at the University of California, Berkeley. He had received popular support for his 1966 gubernatorial campaign promise to crack down on what the public perceived as a generally lax attitude at California's public universities. In the U.S. House of Representatives, the Higher Education Protection and Freedom of Expression Act of 1969 was introduced in response to mass protests and demonstrations at universities and colleges across the nation. The bill would have required colleges and universities to file plans of action for dealing with campus unrest with the U.S. commissioner of education, and would have given the institutions the power to suspend federal aid to students convicted, in court or by the university, of violating campus rules in connection with student riots. The bill also proposed that any school that did not file such plans would lose federal funding. Reagan supported the federal legislation; in a March 19 statement, he urged the U.S. Congress to "be equally concerned about those who commit violence who are not receiving aid". On May 20, U.S. attorney general John N. Mitchell advised the committee that existing law was "adequate". On June 13, Reagan defended his actions in a televised speech delivered from San Francisco; a small sampling of public input (101 telegrams received by the governor's office after the broadcast) suggests that the public was supportive of the governor's actions. In an address before the California Council of Growers on April 7, 1970, Reagan defended his policies for dealing with campus protests: "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with. No more appeasement." Berkeley Tribe editors decided to issue this quote in large type on the cover of its next edition.