Free Speech Movement
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The Free Speech Movement was a student protest that began on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley in 1964 under the informal leadership of student Mario Savio and others. In protests unprecedented at the time, students demanded that the university administration lift a ban on on-campus political activities and recognize the students' right to free speech and academic freedom. The Free Speech Movement is often cited as a starting point for the many student protest movements of the 1960s and early 1970s.
Student activists, some of whom had traveled with the Freedom Riders and worked to register African American voters in the South over the summer, had set up information tables on campus and were soliciting donations for civil rights causes. Such political activity, or any political activity, on campus was against existing rules. There was also a mandatory "loyalty oath" required of faculty, which had led to dismissals and ongoing controversy over academic freedom. 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." This strip was until then thought to be city property, not campus property.
On October 1, 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. Weinberg did not leave the police car, nor did the car move for 36 hours. At one point, there may have been 3,000 students around the car.
During this period, 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. 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. The center of the protest was Sproul Hall, the campus administration building, which protesters took over in a massive sit-in. The sit-in ended on December 3, when police arrested over 800 students.
After much disturbance, the University officials slowly backed down. By January 3, 1965, the new acting chancellor, Martin Meyerson, established provisional rules for political activity on the Berkeley campus, designating the Sproul Hall steps an open discussion area during certain hours of the day and permitting tables.
One misconception about the FSM was that it was only left-wing oriented. The fact was that all political activity had been banned, including Students for Goldwater and other conservative groups. These groups also participated in the movement and benefited from it.
The Free Speech Movement had long-lasting effects at the Berkeley campus and was a pivotal moment for the civil liberties movement in The Sixties. It was seen as the beginning of the famous student activism that existed on the campus in the 1960's, and continues to a lesser degree today. There was a substantial backlash against the players involved in the Free Speech Movement. Under pressure from California Governor Ronald Reagan, the UC Board of Regents dismissed UC President Clark Kerr because of the perception that he had been too soft on the protestors. The FBI had kept a secret file on Kerr. Reagan had gained political traction by campaigning on a platform to "clean up the mess in Berkeley." This included the earlier protests of the House Committee on Un-American Activities meeting in San Francisco in 1960. There, protesters were washed down the steps inside the Rotunda of San Francisco City Hall with fire hoses, as shown in the conservative film "Operation Abolition," which became an organizing tool for the protesters.
Shortly after the FSM, a young man holding a poster with the simple word "fuck" created a short sensation known as the "Filthy Speech Movement." Although felt intensely by a few, protest over this issue quickly died out, most students not seeing it as a cause to commit to.
In the Spring of 1965, the FSM was followed by the Vietnam Day Committee, a major starting point for the anti-Vietnam war movement.
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 who wishes to appear, of any political orientation. A wide variety of groups of all political, religious and social persuasions set up tables at Sproul Plaza. The Sproul steps, now called "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.
See also
- Berkeley, California
- The Sixties
- Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
- Freedom Summer Campaign
- New Left
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
- Students for a Democratic Society
- Town and gown
- Berkeley in the '60s, a documentary film from 1990
- Hippy
External links
- articles by Jo Freeman on social protest at Berkeley[link]
- documents from SLATE -- the UC Berkeley student political party 1957-1966 and the first of the student organizations in the rising New Left and student movements [link]
- [John Searle account] of FSM; [some photos] on John Searle's site.
- ["People's History of Berkeley"] - Extensive history at the Barrington Collective's Wiki
- [Online Sound Recordings from the Free Speech Movement - UC Berkeley Library]
- [Free Speech Movement Archives]
- [Free Speech Movement Digital Archives from UC Berkeley]
- [FSM@40: Free Speech in a Dangerous Time]
References
- Cloke, Kenneth, Democracy and Revolution in Law and Politics: The Origin of Civil Liberties Protest Movements in Berkeley, From TASC and SLATE to FSM (1957-1965), Ph.D. Dissertation, Dept. of History, UCLA, 1980.
- Cohen, Robert and Reginald Zelnik, eds. The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.
- Cohen, Robert, ed., The FSM and Beyond: Berkeley Students, Protest and Social Change in the 1960s, unpublished anthology, Berkeley, Ca.: n.d. 1994.
- Freeman, Jo At Berkeley in the Sixties: Education of an Activist, 1961-1965 Bloomington, IN: Indiana U. Press, 2004
- Draper, Hal,, Berkeley: The New Student Revolt, New York: Grove Press, 1965.
- Goines, David Lance, The Free Speech Movement: Coming of Age in the 1960s
- Heirich, Max, The Beginning: Berkeley, 1964 New York: Columbia University Press, 1971.
- Horowitz, David, Student: What Has Been Happening at a Major University, The Political Activities of the Berkeley Students, New York: Ballantine Books, 1962.
- Kerr, Clark, The Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949-1967
- Lipset, Seymour Martin and Sheldon S. Wolin, eds. The Berkeley Student Revolt: Facts and Interpretations, Garden City: Anchor Books, 1965.
- Lunsford, Terry F., The "Free Speech" Crises at Berkeley, 1964-1965: Some Issues for Social and Legal Research, A Report form the Center for Research and Development in Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley, December 1965.
- Raskin, A.H., "The Berkeley Affair: Mr. Kerr vs. Mr. Savio & Co.", The New York Times Magazine, February 14, 1965, pp. 24-5, 88-91. Reprinted in Miller and Gilmore, 1965, pp. 78-91.
- Rorabaugh, W. J., Berkeley at War: The 1960s
- Rossman, Michael, The Wedding Within the War, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1971.
- Seaborg, Glenn, with Ray Colvig, Chancellor at Berkeley, Berkeley: Institute of Governmental Studies Press, University of California, Berkeley, 1994.
- Searle, John, The Campus War: A Sympathetic Look at the University in Agony, New York: The World Publishing Company, 1971.
- Stadtman, Verne A., The University of California 1868-1968, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970.
- Stewart, George R., The Year of the Oath: The Fight for Academic Freedom at the University of California, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1950.
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