Memorial to the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley
The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a massive, long-lasting student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The Movement was informally under the central leadership of Berkeley graduate student Mario Savio. Other student leaders include Jack Weinberg, Michael Rossman, George Barton, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Michael Teal, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and others.
With the participation of thousands of students, the Free Speech
Movement was the first mass act of civil disobedience on an American
college campus in the 1960s.
Students insisted that the university administration lift the ban of
on-campus political activities and acknowledge the students' right to free speech and academic freedom. The Free Speech Movement was influenced by the New Left, and was also related to the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement.
To this day, the Movement's legacy continues to shape American
political dialogue both on college campuses and in broader society,
impacting on the political views and values of college students and the
general public.
1964–1965
Background
In 1958, activist students organized SLATE,
a campus political party meaning a "slate" of candidates running on the
same level – a same "slate." The students created SLATE to promote the
right of student groups to support off-campus issues. In the fall of 1964, student activists, some of whom had traveled with the Freedom Riders and worked to register African American voters in Mississippi in the Freedom Summer project, set up information tables on campus and were soliciting donations for causes connected to the Civil Rights Movement.
According to existing rules at the time, fundraising for political
parties was limited exclusively to the Democratic and Republican school
clubs. There was also a mandatory "loyalty oath" required of faculty, which had led to dismissals and ongoing controversy over academic freedom. Sol Stern, a former radical who took part in the Free Speech Movement, stated in a 2014 City Journal
article that the group viewed the United States to be both racist and
imperialistic and that the main intent after lifting Berkeley's loyalty
oath was to build on the legacy of C Wright Mills and weaken the Cold War consensus by promoting the ideas of the Cuban Revolution.
On September 14, 1964, Dean Katherine Towle
announced that existing University regulations prohibiting advocacy of
political causes or candidates, outside political speakers, recruitment
of members, and fundraising by student organizations at the intersection
of Bancroft and Telegraph Avenues would be "strictly enforced."
Jack Weinberg and sit-in
On October 1, 1964, former graduate student Jack Weinberg was sitting at the CORE
table. He refused to show his identification to the campus police and
was arrested. There was a spontaneous movement of students to surround
the police car in which he was to be transported. This was a form of
civil disobedience which became a major part of the movement. These
protests were meant to illustrate that the opposing side was in the
wrong. The police car remained there for 32 hours, all while Weinberg
was inside it. At one point, there may have been 3,000 students around
the car.
The car was used as a speaker's podium and a continuous public
discussion was held which continued until the charges against Weinberg
were dropped.
Mario Savio leading a rally on the steps of Sproul Hall in 1966
On December 2, between 1,500 and 4,000 students went into Sproul Hall
as a last resort in order to re-open negotiations with the
administration on the subject of restrictions on political speech and
action on campus.
Among other grievances was the fact that four of their leaders were
being singled out for punishment. The demonstration was orderly;
students studied, watched movies, and sang folk songs. Joan Baez
was there to lead in the singing, as well as lend moral support.
"Freedom classes" were held by teaching assistants on one floor, and a
special Channukah service took place in the main lobby. On the steps of
Sproul Hall, Mario Savio gave a famous speech:
... But we're a bunch of raw materials that don't mean to be — have any process upon us. Don't mean to be made into any product! Don't mean — Don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We're human beings! ... There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious — makes you so sick at heart — that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.
At midnight, Alameda County deputy district attorney Edwin Meese III telephoned Governor Edmund Brown Sr., asking for authority to proceed with a mass arrest.
Shortly after 2 a.m. on December 4, 1964, police cordoned off the
building, and at 3:30 a.m. began the arrest. Close to 800 students were
arrested, most of which were transported by bus to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin,
about 25 miles away. They were released on their own recognizance after
a few hours behind bars. About a month later, the university brought
charges against the students who organized the sit-in, resulting in an even larger student protest that all but shut down the university.
Aftermath
After much disturbance, the University officials slowly backed down. By January 3, 1965, the new acting chancellor, Martin Meyerson (who had replaced the previous resigned Edward Strong), established provisional rules for political activity on the Berkeley campus.
He designated the Sproul Hall steps an open discussion area during
certain hours of the day and permitting tables. This applied to the
entire student political spectrum, not just the liberal elements that
drove the Free Speech Movement.
Most outsiders, however, identified the Free Speech Movement as a
movement of the Left. Students and others opposed to U.S. foreign
policy did indeed increase their visibility on campus following the
FSM's initial victory. In the spring of 1965, the FSM was followed by
the Vietnam Day Committee, a major starting point for the anti-Vietnam war movement.
Achievements
For
the first time, disobedience tactics of the Civil Rights Movement were
brought by the Free Speech Movement to a college campus in the 1960s.
Those approaches gave the students exceptional leverage to make demands
of the university administrators, and build the foundation for future
protests, such as those against the Vietnam War.
1966–1970
The
Free Speech Movement had long-lasting effects at the Berkeley campus
and was a pivotal moment for the civil liberties movement in the 1960s.
It was seen as the beginning of the famous student activism that
existed on the campus in the 1960s, and continues to a lesser degree
today. There was a substantial voter backlash against the individuals
involved in the Free Speech Movement. Ronald Reagan won an unexpected victory in the fall of 1966 and was elected Governor. He then directed the UC Board of Regents to dismiss UC President Clark Kerr because of the perception that he had been too soft on the protesters. The FBI kept secret files on Kerr and Savio, and subjected their lives and careers to interference under COINTELPRO.
Reagan had gained political traction by campaigning on a platform to "clean up the mess in Berkeley". In the minds of those involved in the backlash, a wide variety of protests, concerned citizens, and activists were lumped together. Furthermore, television news and documentary filmmaking
had made it possible to photograph and broadcast moving images of
protest activity. Much of this media is available today as part of the
permanent collection of the Bancroft Library at Berkeley, including
iconic photographs of the protest activity by student Ron Enfield (then
chief photographer for the Berkeley campus newspaper, the Daily Cal).
A reproduction of what may be considered the most recognizable and
iconic photograph of the movement, a shot of suit-clad students carrying
the Free Speech banner through the University's Sather Gate in Fall of 1964, now stands at the entrance to the college's Free Speech Movement Cafe.
Earlier protests against the House Committee on Un-American Activities meeting in San Francisco in 1960 had included an iconic scene as protesters were literally washed down the steps inside the Rotunda of San Francisco City Hall with fire hoses. The anti-Communist film Operation Abolition depicted this scene and became an organizing tool for the protesters.
Reunions
The
20th anniversary reunion of the FSM was held during the first week of
October, 1984, to considerable media attention. A rally in Sproul Plaza
featured FSM veterans Mario Savio, who ended a long self-imposed
silence, Jack Weinberg, and Jackie Goldberg. The week continued with a
series of panels open to the public on the movement and its impact.
The 30th anniversary reunion, held during the first weekend of
December 1994, was also a public event, with another Sproul Plaza rally
featuring Savio, Weinberg, Goldberg, panels on the FSM, and current free
speech issues. In April 2001, UC's Bancroft Library
held a symposium celebrating the opening of the Free Speech Movement
Digital Archive. Although not a formal FSM reunion, many FSM leaders
were on the panels and other participants were in the audience. The 40th anniversary reunion, the first after Savio's death in 1996, was held in October 2004. It featured columnist Molly Ivins
giving the annual Mario Savio Memorial Lecture, followed later in the
week by the customary rally in Sproul Plaza and panels on civil
liberties issues.
A Sunday meeting was a more private event, primarily a gathering for
the veterans of the movement, in remembrance of Savio and of a close FSM
ally, professor Reginald Zelnik, who had died in an accident in May.
Today
Free Speech Monument Sproul Plaza Berkeley California
Today, Sproul Hall and the surrounding Sproul Plaza
are active locations for protests and marches, as well as the ordinary
daily tables with free literature from anyone of any political
orientation who wishes to appear. A wide variety of groups of all
political, religious and social persuasions set up tables at Sproul
Plaza. The Sproul steps, now officially known as the "Mario Savio
Steps", may be reserved by anyone for a speech or rally. An on-campus restaurant commemorating the event, the Mario Savio Free Speech Movement Cafe, resides in a portion of the Moffitt Undergraduate Library.
The Free Speech Monument, commemorating the movement, was created
in 1991 by artist Mark Brest van Kempen. It is located, appropriately,
in Sproul Plaza. The monument consists of a six-inch hole in the
ground filled with soil and a granite ring surrounding it. The granite
ring bears the inscription, "This soil and the air space extending above
it shall not be a part of any nation and shall not be subject to any
entity's jurisdiction." The monument makes no explicit reference to the
movement, but it evokes notions of free speech and its implications
through its rhetoric.
