Mario Savio (December 8, 1942 – November 6, 1996) was an American activist and a key member of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement.

He is most famous for his passionate speeches, especially the "Bodies Upon the Gears" address given at Sproul Hall, University of California, Berkeley on December 2, 1964.

[2] When he finished in 1963, he spent the summer working with a Catholic relief organization in Taxco, Mexico helping to improve the sanitary problems by building facilities in the slums.

[3] In March 1964, he was arrested while demonstrating against the San Francisco Hotel Association for excluding Black people from non-menial jobs.

[3] In July, Savio, another white civil-rights activist and a Black acquaintance were walking down a road in Jackson and were attacked by two men.

However, the case stalled until President Lyndon Johnson, who had recently signed the Civil Rights Act, allowed the FBI to look into it as a civil-rights violation.

[6] When Savio returned to Berkeley after his time in Mississippi, he intended to raise money for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, but found that the university had banned all political activity and fundraising.

"[7] Savio's part in the protest on the Berkeley campus started on October 1, 1964, when former graduate student Jack Weinberg was staffing a table for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

[3] The last time he climbed on the police car was to tell the crowd of a short-term understanding that had been reached with UC President Clark Kerr.

He spoke on the steps of Sproul Hall, on December 2, 1964: We were told the following: If President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the regents in his telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public statement to that effect?

And the answer we received, from a well-meaning liberal, was the following: He said, 'Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his board of directors?'

[11]In 1999, the media revealed that Savio had been tailed by the FBI from the moment that he had climbed onto the police car in which Jack Weinberg was detained.

There was no evidence that he was a threat or that he had any connection with the Communist Party, but the FBI decided he merited their attention because they thought he could inspire students to rebel.

[2] Between 1965 and his death, Savio held a variety of jobs, including as a salesclerk in Berkeley and instructor at Sonoma State University.

In 1968, he ran for state senator from Alameda County on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket, but lost to Nicholas C. Petris, a liberal Democrat.

According to his friend Jackie Goldberg (a former FSM leader, and not related to his wife), Savio showed up homeless on her doorstep, and she found him in a "very bad emotional state."

Past lecturers include Howard Zinn, Winona LaDuke, Lani Guinier, Barbara Ehrenreich, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Cornel West, Christopher Hitchens, Adam Hochschild, Amy Goodman, Molly Ivins, Jeff Chang, Tom Hayden, Angela Davis, Seymour Hersh, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Naomi Klein, Elizabeth Warren, Robert Reich, and Van Jones.

[22] Since the onset of the Occupy movement in the United States in late 2011, Savio's speech and his activism have been cited many times.

At the ceremony, Lynne Hollander Savio told the audience, "I hope you will use this free speech corner often, to advocate and organize with dignity and responsibility for the causes you believe in.