california history - California Historical Society

In 1991, the university once again attempted toregain control of People’s Park by evicting thehomeless and others in order to construct volleyballcourts. On July 31, following fruitless town-gownnegotiations, campus administrators sent in bulldozers,sparking riots and protests. Although thecourts were removed in 1997, over the years theuniversity’s plans to erect structures in the southcampus area have created an enduring challengeto those who wish to maintain the park’s statusas a community mainstay and historical-politicallandmark.Courtesy of Terri CompostPark riots as a clash between “two opposed andperhaps irreconcilable ideological visions of thenature and purpose of public space, two opposedvisions that have a great deal of impact on howthe right to the city is conceptualized and forwhom it is a viable right.” 62On one side, adhering to “the same sorts of ideologicalvisions for public space” as the originalfounders of People’s Park, a coalition of politicalactivists and homeless users of the park “provideda vision of space marked by free interactions,user determination, and the absence ofcoercion by powerful institutions.” In this view,the park was “recognized as a refuge for homelesspeople since its founding.” The alternateposition, advocated by the university, envisioneda vastly different People’s Park that would be“open for recreation and entertainment” and“subject to usage by an appropriate public (students,middle class residents, and visitors, etc.)that used the space by permission of its owners.”Under the university’s “planned, orderly, andsafe” conception of People’s Park, appropriateusers needed “to feel comfortable” and therefore“should not be driven away by unsightly homelesspeople or unsolicited political activity.” 63In 1992, People’s Park faced another crisis whoseresolution, despite its preservation as open space,provided no certainty that it could survive withits original ideals intact. In the early morninghours of August 25, Rosebud Denovo, a youngrunaway from Kentucky with a history of psychologicalproblems, broke into the home ofChancellor Chang-Lin Tien and was killed by anOakland policeman. The twenty-year-old victimoften had slept in People’s Park and had beenamong those who had rioted against constructionof the volleyball courts. The official version of herdeath stressed two points: that the self-professedanarchist had intended to kill the chancellor andhis wife with a machete and that the officer whofired the fatal shots had acted in self-defense afterDenovo swung the weapon at him. Any actualknowledge of Denovo’s intentions died with her;many of her friends believed that she only hadplanned to destroy paintings and furniture withthe machete. Despite the officer’s claims that hefell backward into a bathtub and shot upward at California History • volume 88 number 1 2010