Editor’s note: 50 Years of Free Speech
Widely hailed as a seminal moment in the founding of UC Berkeley’s international reputation for unrelenting, unapologetic student activism, the Free Speech Movement this year turns 50.
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Video: Free Speech Movement, then and now
The Daily Cal explores the historical importance of the Free Speech Movement and how it has influenced what free speech means at UC Berkeley today.
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Fifty years of struggle: alumni celebrate the victory and legacy of the the Free Speech Movement
Early October in 1964, UC Berkeley students snaked their picket lines around popular campus buildings, puncturing the cool morning air with whoops and hollers. They were denizens of the folk scare, an acid-inspired and bebopping crew who felt the heat of a boiling movement — their anthem a resounding for
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The university commodified the Free Speech Movement
The struggle for free speech continues today. I am a graduate student at UC Berkeley and a member of the Cal Progressive Coalition, a group of student, worker and community voices who are organizing around the FSM anniversary to amplify our contemporary work towards a just university. Our collaboration is
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Has free speech become a “Dead Dogma” at Berkeley?
As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement and evaluate its legacy on UC Berkeley’s campus, it is edifying to turn to John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty,” which remains one of the most eloquent apologies for free speech a full 155 years after it was first published.
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Reflecting on the legacy of the Free Speech Movement
Some have questioned the administrative embrace of the celebration and legacy of the Free Speech Movement on its 50th anniversary. As a newcomer to this campus, I have been pleased to recognize the role that students and faculty here played in establishing that the norms of free speech on campus
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Activism operating in the red
Behind every celebration of the Free Speech Movement in the past few weeks seemed to lie heavy, nostalgic hearts for what used to be. Commemorative articles from the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and NPR all bemoaned on the diminished state of student activism on campus. UC Berkeley
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Students reflect on the meaning of free speech
The legacy of the Free Speech Movement is undeniable — inescapable, even. Upper Sproul Plaza is notorious for the chaotic concentration of student groups advocating their causes. Yet 50 years ago, this was a liberty students did not have. Restrictions on the right to political advocacy were at the root
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Cohen’s “The Essential Mario Savio” reflects on nature of the movement
Historians often have a reputation for idolizing those that they study. As critics on both sides of the aisle note, this has been especially evident in the celebration of the Free Speech Movement during its 50th anniversary. In “The Essential Mario Savio: Speeches and Writings that Changed America,” noted historian
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“FSM” play challenges future students to speak
A black-and-white image of a car painted on a large piece of plywood sits center stage. Surrounding it and rising up toward the rafters is a scaffold supporting more painted scenes on plywood squares. Visible in all these images are some of the more memorable features of UC Berkeley’s campus
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