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california history - California Historical Society

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Little is known about Curtis except his occupation.John Angelo was an eager nineteen yearold who volunteered to commute each week toVallejo to pick up grass sod. Paul Glusman wasinfamous among Berkeley radicals for his “senseof the absurd,” best manifested by his ownorganization of one, the Concerned Stalinistsfor Peace. He was also notorious to the Berkeleypolice for his role in organizing the Moses Hallsit-in and was one of three activists charged,though never convicted, with criminal conspiracyin connection with the building’s seizure. 14Stew Albert, another well-known Berkeley politico,was a native of Brooklyn, where he attendedPace University, earning a bachelor’s degree withan emphasis in politics and philosophy. Aftermoving to Berkeley in 1965, he was one of thefour principal founders of the Free University ofBerkeley (FUB), which offered innovative coursesdeemed unacceptable to mainstream academicthought. A close confidant of Yippie founder andleader Jerry Rubin, he mirrored Rubin’s quirkypassage from the somber Maoism of the ProgressiveLabor (PL) Party to the “do your own thing,”culturally-oriented yet politically-involved Yippiesprotest. Rubin described Albert as “the wildestteacher at the University of <strong>California</strong>,” who wascapable of attracting massive crowds to lectures“about pot, Vietnam, God, the university, sex, andCommunism.” 15In the spring of 1967, Albert served as Rubin’scampaign manager for his Berkeley mayoral bidand the next year plunged into organizing theYippies’ “Festival of Life” at the 1968 DemocraticParty convention in Chicago. He was arrestedduring the altercations with Chicago police andfor participating in the Moses Hall sit-in uponreturning to Berkeley in the fall. Todd Gitlin,president of Students for a Democratic <strong>Society</strong>(SDS) from 1963 to 1964 and now a sociologyprofessor at Columbia University, depicted Albertas “a bohemian ex-PLer with curly blond locksand a guileless manner who had turned RubinActivist Stew Albert wrote the April 18, 1969, call to action in the BerkeleyBarb to build a community park, urging people to “bring shovels, hoses,chains, grass, paints, flowers, trees, bull dozers, top soil, colorful smiles,laughter and lots of sweat.” In his 1970 run for Alameda County Sheriff,he carried the city of Berkeley with 65,000 votes.Photo: © Robert Altman, www.altmanphoto.comon to marijuana and for years enjoyed flirtingwith the idea of a hip-radical fusion.” 16The nucleus of six park developers soon expandedto include Jon Read, Mike Lyon, Art Goldberg,Frank Bardacke, William Crosby “Big Bill” Miller,and “Super Joel” (Joseph Eric) Tornabene. Readwas a professional landscape architect who hadgraduated from UC Berkeley in 1961. He hadlived in the original countercultural meccas of the1

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