Synopsis "Camelot Down Berkeley 1969"
Caught up in the violence of riots, gas attacks and death at the University of California, Berkeley, a police officer and a coed newspaper reporter fall in love and struggle to keep their passion alive. When handsome and charismatic John F. Kennedy took the oath of office of President of the United States many Americans believed their country was entering a golden age. JFK's confidence that the government possessed big answers to big problems, and his challenge to "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," resonated with an American public hoping for a life of happily ever-aftering in a new Camelot. For about ten years, beginning in 1964, even though Kennedy had already been brutally assassinated, students and protesters at the University of California, Berkeley, advocated for Free Speech, Civil Rights, the end of the Vietnam War, and other causes, attempting to establish the campus as the spiritual beacon of a new Camelot. In rebellion against the University, People's Park was built on campus to be a "cultural, political freak-out and rap center for the Western world." But on "Bloody Thursday," May 15, 1969, police destroyed the park and killed one young man and blinded another. King Arthur may have summed up the days of Camelot best when he said, "All we've been through, for nothing but an idea!"
