Street Fights and Social Reproduction: The Role of Health Mutualism in Berkeley’s People’s Park Struggle

Abstract

Abstract: In the social movement literature, the relationship between the political work of collective survival and the politics of the streets remains undertheorized despite robust research on the significance of direct social actions (DSAs). This article revives the work of the Berkeley Free Church during the People’s Park struggles in 1969. Through waves of intense street conflict, the Berkeley Free Church ran grassroots health programs and helped launch a free healthcare clinic. The Free Church’s health programs served both those with daily needs and those needing urgent care in the streets when police responded to demonstrations with violence. This historical case adds complexity to the social movement literature because the Berkeley Free Church’s work reveals a dynamic, interconnected relationship: health mutualism became central to street protest, and street protest in turn made the goals of building projects of health mutualism more feasible.