What Was the Free Speech Movement?

The Free Speech Movement, or FSM, was a catalyst for a decade of political ferment on college campuses nationwide.

It left an environment where people could launch massive protests against the Vietnam war, for the environment, for women, for ethic studies.

What was the FSM?

It was the sexy blond skier I saw picketing Sproul Hall before the start of classes, protesting against the new UC administrative ban against political activity at Bancroft and Telegraph. She said this was a serious issue.

It was a united front of student groups, an unprecedented political parabola arcing across the entire political spectrum, suddenly denied their traditional freedom to set up card tables on the 90-by-26 foot strip at Bancroft and Telegraph.

From these tables they solicited donations and memberships in their organizations and advocated various political activities. These were their lifelines; without them they'd be powerless.

It was an insistence on engaging in substantive politics over sandbox politics.

It was a questioning of authority. Did the administration have the right to set arbitrary rules governing political activity? The first rule was that there were to be no tables, as they obstructed traffic. Later, it was that there could be tables where they had been, but with no advocacy of actions like registering to vote. Later still, the administration declared students could advocate actions, but not ones that might later lead to arrests for civil disobedience or anything else. This is known as prior restraint of speech.

The Free Speech Movement was a demand that admission to UC Berkeley not require a forfeiture of Constitutional guarantees.

It was a co-mingling of our thoughts with the Founding Fathers'.

It was Mark Bravo, David Goines, Donald Hatch, Elizabeth Gardner Stapleton, Brian Turner: students committed to the civil rights struggle who risked their futures sitting at tables in defiance of the ban. They were told to report for disciplinary action.

It was the 300-plus who, seeing the deans cite the few, joined in solidarity, sat at the tables just long enough to sign their names to petitions saying they co-jointly manned the tables and that whatever punishment was to befall the few should befall the many. Imagine the deans' surprise! They ordered a handful and got a hall full of students eager that justice be done: "One for all and all for one."

It was Jack Weinberg, sitting at a table, then when arrested for that, sitting in a police car he was carried to, for 32 hours. Two burning questions of history: Did Jack go? If so, how?

The Free Speech Movement was anyone who sat down around the police car in the first few minutes. That took courage.

The FSM was the police car, our peaceful capture. We didn't go out hunting for it. It came to us, to give our cause of constitutional liberties a launching pad. It was our symbol of proud defiance.

It was all the speakers who took off their shoes and spoke on October 1 or 2 from atop the trapped police car.

It was a cry for humanity in education.

It was the silent generation gaining its voice.

It was living with tension and fear as more than 600 police arrived on campus.

It was about democracy, slow, painful, laborious, lasting through the night, the height of inefficiency, yet in the morning's light, the coalition, like the flag, was still there.

It was Mario Savio, time and again, but never more eloquently than on Sproul Hall steps on December 2:

"There is 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 on 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."

It was Joan Baez, leading us in singing "We Shall Overcome" on our way into Sproul Hall.

It was the 2,000 who went in, hoping the administration would hear us.

It was dancing the hora for Hanukah.

It was people climbing ropes to get into Sproul Hall to be arrested.

It was the 773 arrested in Sproul Hall.

It was the 17-year-olds who stayed, hoping to be arrested, only to be advised not to be arrested.

It was the shared experience of police brutality, arms wrenched behind our ears, glasses deliberately knocked off, though it was probably worse if one were a leader or if one answered the question, "Would you rather be dragged out or walk out like a gentleman?" as I did: "I'd rather be dragged out like a gentleman."

It was Art Goldberg, who calmly explained how to go limp and be dragged out, then went limp and was dragged out, mentoring all the way.

It was my mild-mannered banker grandfather who retorted, when chided by a reactionary acquaintance about my arrest: "My grandson has as much right to free speech as you do."

It was the faculty who arranged our bail.

It was young Professor Reggie Zelnik who risked his career supporting us.

It was the whirring of cameras when we returned to campus.

It was my old girlfriend telling me how proud she was of me and taking me out to lunch at LaVal's. I'd been on a hunger strike, it was my first meal in two days, my stomach had shrunk, and I could only eat half a sandwich, but it was the end-all-be-all-hands-down-all-time-best half sandwich ever.

It was the unionists who honored the picket lines.

The FSM was key dates: October 1 (the capture of the police car, now Free Speech Day in California), December 2-4 (2, when we took over Sproul Hall; 3, when we were arrested; and, 4, when we were released and saw the terrific campuswide strike), and December 8, when two big things happened. First, the pro-FSM candidates swept all seven ASUC Senate races by wide margins. Then, that night, the faculty's Academic Senate met and adopted the FSM platform, by a vote of 824-115. These two events finally put to rest the administration-sponsored lie that the FSM just represented a small minority of students.

The FSM was where the action was. It was a sense of being at one with the winds of change. It was ecstasy. It was the best of times, the most exciting, the most important, when we stood tall in defense of a great principle.

It was a sense that if we are committed and united, we can change the world.

It was a shining moment in history.

It was the best time of our lives.

It is worth remembering.

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