The Berkeley Free Speech Movement of 1964 had a powerful impact on the course of American society. If you value the freedom to speak up when you see a need for change, take a moment to thank the activists at the University of California, Berkeley who took part in that event.
During the 1960’s America was undergoing a profound social evolution. All around the country young people were demanding change. They weren’t content just to follow in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents. They had their own ideas about the kind of world they wanted.
Some Berkeley students had taken part in Freedom Summer in 1964, where they had traveled to the south along with other activists to support voting rights for Black Americans. Back at Berkeley that fall, they helped form the core of student activism that grew into the Free Speech Movement.
This event, starting in September,1964 at UC Berkeley, had an enormous impact on the future of America.
Several Berkeley students were using the campus’s Bancroft Way walkway for fundraising and gathering support for groups like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE.) The UC Berkeley administration wanted to restrict those activities on campus and tried to shut down the space the students were using.
Police arrested graduate student Jack Weinberg on October 1st for tabling in that area without a permit. He was put in a police car. Students immediately surrounded the car and sat down, refusing to leave. The car couldn’t move. The students remained in place blocking the police car for 32 hours until police finally released him.
Before Weinberg was released, Mario Savio, a student leader of the movement, gave an impromptu speech to the crowd from the top of the police car.
The arrest and the speech sparked more protests and a campus-wide strike. This was the beginning of the Free Speech Movement (FSM).
Throughout the semester students organized sit-ins and acts of civil disobedience in protest. Some faculty members and members of Civil Rights organizations joined. The sit-ins mushroomed into a series of large-scale rallies and protests.
Youth groups ranging from the Young Republicans to the youth group of the Communist Party took part in the movement.
On December 2nd, still at odds with the administration, the FSM held a rally in front of Sproul Hall where Savio spoke to the crowd about the fundamental right to free speech.
You may have heard a snippet from his speech that has been often repeated, “…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!”
See the full text of the speech: Mario Savio speech.
Following Savio’s speech, about 1500 students entered Sproul Hall and refused to leave. In the early morning hours hundreds of police officers entered the building and started arresting protestors.
Nearly 800 students were arrested. In response to the arrests, the FSM called a student strike, and most classes were cancelled.
Protests and rallies continued. On December 8th, the faculty Academic Senate met and called for no disciplinary action against any students involved in the free speech controversy. It voted to allow speech without limits except by reasonable regulations “to prevent interference with the normal functions of the university.”
The Board of Regents rejected the motion passed by the Academic Senate but accepted the idea that student free speech should be limited only by the First Amendment. The worst of the crisis was over. When the dust settled, a new chancellor was appointed. Sproul Plaza was designated as a public forum and political tables, advocacy, and fundraising were allowed.
The Berkeley Free Speech Movement stood on solid ground. Freedom of speech is enshrined in the American Constitution. The founders put the right of free speech in the first amendment for a very good reason. It’s foundational to democracy.
Many young people today don’t appreciate the value of free speech because they’ve never been denied it. But as recently as the 1960’s many Americans had their speech curtailed. College and university students were often prevented from expressing their views by the boards of those learning institutions.
The Free Speech Movement had strong allies in the faculty, CORE, and SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). Students had traveled south to support the Civil Rights Movement, and members of that movement added their voices to the fight for students’ rights at the university.
The university’s administration was restricting political activities on campus, and the students and their allies weren’t having it. This is how movements join forces and grow.
The Civil Rights Movement was, in many ways, an inspiration to the young students who had gone south to work with the movement. Returning to school they faced restrictions on their speech, and they quickly adopted the kind of activism they had learned during Freedom Summer.
The Free Speech Movement is strongly connected to the Anti-War Movement that grew rapidly as the war in Vietnam escalated in 1965. The students had learned the power of their numbers and their voices.
UC Berkeley is only 14 miles from San Francisco, a major hub of hippie activity. This meant the hippie rejection of the status quo and the activism of the students intermingled easily and grew into a broader coalition that continued to spread and protest the suppression of rights for many groups that had been kept on the sidelines of society.
The Women’s Rights Movement, the Gay Rights Movement, and the Environmental Movement all learned from the activism of both the Civil Rights Movement and the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. More allies joined the fight for change.
All around America protestors rejected the idea of unconditionally following the ways of the establishment. Young people were ready to see change in their world, and they were ready to bring that change, whether their elders were ready or not.
The broader social context of the 1960’s, rejection of mainstream values and refusal to accept restrictions on individual freedoms, led students to stand up and demand to be heard. They were no longer willing to accept the status quo.
The 1960’s were a time of great upheaval, but also a time of coming together to improve society. Moving forward, young people would actively work toward equality for groups that had been denied equal rights. The future was theirs, and they wanted a say in how it was shaped.