After thousands of years, the Ohlone people and their supporters celebrated the return of sacred Native land in Berkeley, California. The 2.2-acre parking lot, the last undeveloped part of the shellmound in West Berkeley, holds significant historical importance as the site of the first human settlement on the San Francisco Bay shoreline 5,700 years ago.
The Berkeley City Council unanimously passed an ordinance granting the land title to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, a collective dedicated to returning land to Indigenous people. The collective, led by women, successfully raised funds to secure the agreement with the developers who owned the land.
