Our mundane student world was turned upside-down by a motley collection of Vietnam vets, international rabblerousers and radical lesbians preaching feminism, socialism and anarchism and waging a battle against the administration. Negotiations yielded a basement office for our new Student Center for Social Change that fall.
Gail and I returned to campus, joined student government, and procured a $4000 loan to start a student-controlled food market to lay a foundation for our organizing.
We found a space in the Student Union, bought equipment, and set up ordering and bookkeeping systems. I hitchhiked to Boston and returned with fresh organic produce in a truck shared with members of the Amherst Food Coop.
We opened the People's Market in the fall of 1973 and it was so successful we could barely keep food on the shelves.
A stereo, bike and book coop plus a vegetarian restaurant, Earth Foods, followed.
I’m thrilled to say that People's Market just celebrated its 50th anniversary! Close to a thousand of students have passed through its doors, learning about entrepreneurship, social change, organic food and cooperative work.
Long live the
In the spring of my 19th year, my friend Gail Sullivan and I flew down an elevator from the 19th floor of our dorm in Southwest at UMass Amherst to join an occupation of the ROTC building against the Vietnam War.
People’s Market!
