Free Speech Movement
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.
[3] 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.
According to existing rules at the time, fundraising for political parties was limited exclusively to the Democratic and Republican school clubs.
Sol Stern, a former radical who took part in the Free Speech Movement,[9] stated in a 2014 City Journal article that the group viewed the United States government to be racist and imperialist, and that the main intent after lifting Berkeley's loyalty oath was to build on the legacy of C. Wright Mills.
[10] 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.
"Freedom classes" were held by teaching assistants on one floor, and a special Channukah service took place in the main lobby.
[12]At midnight, Alameda County deputy district attorney Edwin Meese III telephoned Governor Edmund Brown Sr., asking for authority to proceed with a mass arrest.
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.
[13] He designated the Sproul Hall steps an open discussion area during certain hours of the day and permitted information tables.
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.
A rally in Sproul Plaza featured FSM veterans Mario Savio, who ended a long self-imposed silence, Jack Weinberg, and Jackie Goldberg.
[22] 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.
[23] In April 2001, UC's Bancroft Library held a symposium celebrating the opening of the Free Speech Movement Digital Archive.
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.
[25] 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.
[10] An on-campus restaurant commemorating the event, the Mario Savio Free Speech Movement Cafe, resides in a portion of the Moffitt Undergraduate Library.
