A Thousand UC Berkeley Students Celebrate in the Streets

A impromptu victory parade eventually attracting more than a thousand Berkeley students took shape around 9 pm at the south edge of the UC Berkeley campus tonight. The party began on Bancroft Avenue, a stone's throw from the birth of the Free Speech movement at Sproul Plaza, and wended its way down Telegraph, up to College Avenue, and back down to Telegraph, where a jam-packed crowd stood around cheering and marveling at the spectacle and this moment in history.

It was a good night to park illegally around the UC Berkeley campus. After all, most traffic heading down Bancroft Way and up Haste was completely stopped. Drivers stuck in the parade honked and celebrated with students, who smiled and cheered, waved flags and took cell phone photos of the event. Some students sang The Star Spangled Banner, while others chanted "Yes We Can." Students in the dorms on Durant Avenue yelled out their windows to the parade below.

"It feels good to have been part of something like this," said one Berkeley student. High fives were offered. The police were good-humored about things: Several students posed on a police car, one student even standing atop a police car waving an American flag.