Barricades Be Damned: The Ongoing Fight to Save People’s Park (2025)

Walls Cannot Stop Us: Reclaiming People’s Park, Root by Root

People's Park in Berkeley, California, has been a sanctuary for green space, open space, and community stewardship in the heart of the city's Southside district for nearly 56 years, over half a century. It was more than a gathering place; it was the Southside's only public garden, serving as an essential commons for urban agriculture, food security, and environmental justice. Everyone, regardless of economic standing, could cultivate, harvest, and share food there. Unlike the cordoned-off and restricted gardens on UC Berkeley's main campus, People's Park belonged to everyone.

In January 2024, UC Berkeley deployed more than 100 riot police to bulldoze and barrier this historic site. Massive shipping containers, 24-hour security guards, razor wire, and surveillance cameras have replaced the open, community-driven garden. Despite militarized control, the park is not abandoned. Community members are regrowing the eastern garden along Dwight Way and Bowditch St., intending to revive it. This will prove that People's Park is not a relic of the past, but rather a model for the future of collaborative care, food sovereignty, and mutual aid.

Throughout 2025, the battle over People's Park has escalated, with activists scaling the barricades erected by UC Berkeley to secure control of the contested land. Many Berkeleyans mourn the partial loss of open space. Many argue that no amount of razor wire can stop their drive to reclaim open space for everyone. After all, the University of California's founding mission was to serve the public good by providing higher educational opportunities for all Californians; nevertheless, those closest to UC Berkeley have yet to enjoy the fruits of this promise.

In defiance of security protocols and the potential risk of UC deploying lethal force, students, community members, and organizers have created pollinator habitats, transplanted native species, and enriched the soil, transforming gardening into a form of civil disobedience. Far from being a casual recreational activity, these efforts are purposeful declarations that the park should serve the greater community rather than be marketed to commercial or institutional interests. The commitment to peaceful protest is the only thing keeping more desperate forms of resistance under control, even as UC ramps up security measures, including the use of militants, to safeguard its capital-driven long-range development plan.

The likelihood of arrest and the reality of Santa Rita Jail arise, yet this has not deterred the movement. UC's continuous reliance on more policing and advanced armament highlights the sharp disparity between those who safeguard a shared, nurturing environment and others who put cash streams over human lives. Guerrilla gardeners, for their part, are laying the groundwork for resistance that targets not only environmental health but also social and racial inequality. As more people interact with this expanding ecosystem, pollinators, and natural species return to the heart of Berkeley, implying that every square inch of soil may be reused to promote life, equity, and collaboration. Regardless of the obstacles, the process of nurturing plants—and allowing those plants to transform the surrounding land—provides a compelling counterbalance to institutional strategies that view the earth just as a commodity.

By using peaceful civil disobedience to protect People's Park, the community proposes a different future. One in which land is held in common and each individual can feel the dignity of belonging and contributing to a shared urban environment.

University of California’s Contradictions on Gardens, Food Justice, and Environmental Stewardship

In a climate of displacement, racial disparities, and sky-high housing costs, caring for the land remains an essential form of expressing local sovereignty and survival. Cuttings and seeds planted in the ground symbolize more than just providing food; they represent hope and a refusal to be deprived. By interacting with the soil and the underground networks of mycorrhizal fungi that allow plants to share nutrients and signals, advocates demonstrate the connectivity of all life. Each new blossom or vegetable demonstrates that community-based stewardship can and should prevail over top-down constraints. Even the sidewalks surrounding People's Park have become protest zones, demonstrating a commitment to keeping public space truly public. Razor wire and barricades may impede our drive, but they cannot extinguish the shared vision of an inclusive Berkeley, one that values neighborhood heritage and recognizes all people's right to exist and care for the land.

UC portrays itself as a leader in sustainability, stormwater management, and climate resilience. However, when it comes to People's Park, institutional actions clearly contradicted the policies in question. Rather than prioritizing environmental justice and true community well-being, the institution chose to demolish a vibrant ecosystem and build obstacles to inclusion. UC Berkeley continually promotes student-run gardens, presenting them as answers to student food insecurity and sustainability initiatives. However, the university aggressively demolished the only public, community-run garden that was resisting its institutional authority. This contradiction reflects UC's broader priorities: gardens, green areas, and environmental efforts are only embraced if they benefit the university's image or research goals, not if they benefit the entire community.

Though Berkeley prides itself on progressive environmental values, the decision to prioritize development over ecological preservation demonstrates the fragility of these commitments. What was once a thriving environment for carbon sequestration, natural cooling, and biodiversity has been converted into a landscape of razor wire and shipping containers, demonstrating how rapidly institutional agendas may take precedence over both sustainability goals and community health. By destroying this communal green space, UC Berkeley jeopardized not only the city's environmental programs, but also its social fabric and general well-being.

Land Grab University — An Anchor Programmed to Sink All Ships

The University of California traces its origins to agricultural, mining, and military sciences—a foundation founded on the seizure of land, displacement, privatization, and limited use. Although the current UC administration under Chancellor Richard Lyons promotes entrepreneurship and innovation, the institution's development has frequently displaced working-class communities, notably Black families, who already confront longstanding housing disparities.

Southside Berkeley was originally a diverse neighborhood, with McKinley School and the California School for the Deaf and Blind providing crucial programs that united students from the neighborhood. McKinley served as a continuation school for students who struggled in traditional settings, offering customized attention and vocational training that helped disenfranchised families exactly where they lived. The Deaf and Blind School improved community life by encouraging inclusion and disability-centered education. As UC Berkeley expanded, several community anchors were shut down or relocated, demonstrating a trend of favoring university development over neighborhood necessities.

Ongoing Displacement: UC’s Agricultural Legacy, McKinley School, and the School for the Deaf and Blind School

Black families faced the brunt of the displacement, which exacerbated the impacts of redlining and racially restricted covenants. Exclusionary housing practices concentrated Black residents in specific neighborhoods, and when UC recognized the Southside as excellent real estate, the same familial relationships were displaced to make way for student housing. While Berkeley never formally referred to itself as a “sundown town,” local legislation effectively reflected such segregation. This dynamic was reinforced not by landlords but by a two-mile policing radius, which gives the UC Berkeley police department broad power over much of the city. Black residents, particularly those facing homelessness (who were and currently are disproportionately Black), discovered they may be detained or watched under the guise of trespassing or keeping “public order.” Overlapping law enforcement from the city the impact, creating an authoritarian environment reminiscent of the exclusion prevalent in sundown towns.

In the end, the forced closure of McKinley School and the Deaf and Blind School demonstrates what happens when multi-billion dollar institutions prioritize property valuations and homogeneous student populations higher than long-established communities. Their closures and relocations laid the stage for the policing that currently disproportionately affects Black communities and those without housing. People's Park—and the gardening and public service operations within it—represents a different vision: one in which land is used to empower rather than alienate communities. The City of Berkeley can go closer to guaranteeing that its neighborhoods, schools, and public places are accessible to all by embracing grassroots solutions and questioning an indomitable quasi-governmental nonprofit organization's reach.

A Refuge for Justice, Sustainability, and Grassroots Action

In 1969, People's Park emerged as a direct response to these discriminatory tendencies. It distinguishes itself from top-down policies by promoting community gardening, mutual aid, and accessible space. Gardening in and around the park provides fresh produce while also instilling a sense of community and responsibility. This community-driven approach dates back to McKinley School's initial goal, which recognized that disenfranchised students thrived best when supported in their communities. Gardening provides an alternative to institutional goals that prioritize profit and a transient student population. It demonstrates that land may be maintained for the long-term benefit of communities rather than large-scale development that increases gentrification.

Community gardening combats harsh policing methods by reclaiming public spaces for communal usage. Gardens encourage cooperation and visible daily participation, making it more difficult to dismiss or remove people under the pretense of “clean-up” or “safety.” Gardening promotes the right of Black citizens and unhoused populations to remain in the city and maintain a public presence, particularly those who are at risk of being profiled or forcibly relocated. Gardens provide a clear path to self-determination by challenging the reasoning behind both UC's real estate expansion and the harsh policing that surrounds it. They turn contested land into a source of communal nourishment, ecological resilience, and social support.

Turning Public Spaces into Sacrifice Zones: The Environmental Cost of University of California’s Actions

The loss of a publicly accessible park represents more than environmental devastation. Parks serve a vital social and public health role by providing common gathering spaces where people of all ages and backgrounds can exercise, form relationships, and release everyday stress. Studies have strongly suggested that access to green space reduces obesity, heart disease, and depression while increasing general mental health. People's Park, for example, may be one of the few remaining places for unhoused and low-income people to find relaxation, shade, and access to free food. Removing that shelter raises health risks and social isolation, especially for individuals who do not have safe housing or cannot afford gym memberships and private green places.

Furthermore, enclosing a park with shipping containers, surveillance cameras, and militaristic architecture sends a clear message that public land is expendable if it stands in the way of institutional expansion. This move not only decreases recreational and community-building opportunities, but it also creates psychological barriers for locals who used to feel safe gathering or growing food in the area. The consequences include less community cohesion, fewer educational opportunities to learn about urban agriculture, and fewer avenues for mutual support.

People's Park operated as a natural carbon sink, pollinator habitat, and critical stormwater filtration site, lowering urban temperatures and promoting biodiversity. By killing more than 140 mature trees and uprooting countless native and medicinal plants, UC Berkeley destroyed areas critical for bees, butterflies, birds, and other wildlife, compromising the neighborhood's ecological network. Meanwhile, the destruction of important drainage infrastructure damaged the vicinity's resilience to flooding and drought, both of which are expected to worsen as climate change continues.

Reclaiming the Future: People’s Park and the Power of Collective Stewardship

People's Park has long been a symbol of community-driven land management in Berkeley's Southside neighborhood, allowing anybody to grow food, exchange resources, and gather without institutional restraints. Despite the university's bulldozers and barricades, the park remains a model for alternate ways of urban living. The significant emphasis on public access and collaborative stewardship calls into question traditional concepts of urban development, which frequently prioritize high-value projects over the demands of long-term residents. This continuous conflict reveals a wider schism between UC Berkeley's reputation as a pioneer of sustainability and its on-the-ground activities, such as killing mature trees and deploying razor wire to protect its property.

While the university encourages campus gardens and environmental research, it demolished a vital community garden that gave free produce and green space to people from various backgrounds. By demonstrating how a public park may operate as a practical barrier to gentrification and exclusion, activists expose contradictions in UC's professed aims, revealing how institutional expansions can come at the expense of social equity and ecological well-being. Although razor wire and police patrols now surround the area, the act of planting seeds remains a statement that land should serve local communities rather than purely institutional or commercial goals. By continuing to nurture soil that was once bulldozed, activists demonstrate the transformative power of direct engagement with the environment—an approach that connects climate resilience to social justice and that foregrounds human dignity over real estate.

People's Park demonstrates how land reclamation can be used to promote environmental management as well as cultural preservation. Its contentious bounds serve as a reminder to everyone that public space may be a catalyst for healing and community resilience, as long as it is really protected from top-down development. As activists repair pollinator habitats, plant native species, and invite neighbors to interact with the soil, they reinforce the notion that green space is fundamental to a city's social fabric.

The movement's strategies also recognize that genuine sustainability entails the well-being of those who have traditionally been excluded from decision-making processes. Whether it's blocking construction trucks, hosting teach-ins on sustainable land management, or honoring the memories of activists who have lost their lives in the fight against governmental and institutional expansion. The community continues to argue that Berkeley's future should be determined by individuals who permanently live and work here rather than by outside forces of capital or convenience.

People's Park represents a shared vision in which mutual aid, environmental justice, and community care coexist. While UC Berkeley advocates for private housing and more surveillance, the community envisions food justice, ecological restoration, and collective resilience. Walls cannot stop us, and neither can UC Berkeley destroy what grows naturally. UC's border walls cannot prevent us from reuniting within our shared public space. If flowers truly are the root of all good, we will grow alongside the land, one step at a time and root by root.

Join the Gardening Efforts

Location: Dwight Way and Bowditch Street, Berkeley, California

When: All Day / Garden Gatherings at 6:00 PM

Questions? Email: aidanhill@protonmail.com

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