A photo essay by Cheyenne Tex
A crowd gathered at People’s Park in Berkeley, CA for ‘Save People’s Park,’ a demonstration that spoke against UC Berkeley’s People’s Park Housing Project, on January 29, 2021. The People’s Park Housing Project is a UC Berkeley initiative to create student housing on a historic site known as People’s Park.
The demonstration began at 3:00 p.m. Every crowd member was invited to speak at their discretion.
People spoke about how the project would further displace houseless folx living in the park. Park residents shared their stories and expressed gratitude for the action people were taking against UC Berkeley. Several UC Berkeley students gave speeches saying that they denounce the housing project and that this housing project does not align with UC Berkeley’s mission. Specifically noting that students are the ones that displace houseless folx, other speakers urged students to use direct action to halt the housing project saying that the action cannot stop at the end of the protest.
A little after 4:00 p.m., crowd members started taking down the fences that UC Berkeley used to fence off three sections of the park--UC Berkeley sectioned off some parts of the park to obtain soil samples on Jan. 19, 2021 and is set to continue this process until Feb. 16, 2021.
At the end of the protest, crowd members stacked up the remaining parts of the fence.
There's more to the story. Stay tuned for more information.
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