People's Park, Berkeley

The history of the controversy over People's Park in Berkeley CA is discussed. The 1960s saw the beginnings of the health consciousness movement - natural food, exercise, relaxation.

On August 25th, 1992, Rosebud Abigail Denovo broke into the campus home of Chang-Lin Tien, Chancellor of the University of California. Denovo, aged nineteen, a member of the People's Will Direct Action Committee, was the self-appointed judge, jury and executioner of Tien – enemy of the people. An Oakland police officer, called to the scene, intervened before she could carry out her murderous mission. She lunged at him with a machete, and he shot her dead.

On Denovo's body was a note with the message: 'we are wilIing to die for this land. Are you?' By 'land', she meant specifically People's Park in Berkeley. Denovo's revolutionary career had begun a year earlier in response to the decision by the university to build volIeyball courts on the park. At the time of her death she was awaiting trial for possession of explosives – with the explosives was a hit list of campus officials responsible for the decision to build the courts. On news of her death 150 supporters rioted in the park. It is fair to say that Denovo, born in 1973, died in the 1960s.

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