9  The power of a speech

I spent the spring term of 1964 adjusting to Berkeley. Classes were a step down from those at Deep Springs, but I was enlivened by the spirit of the campus and the time. The Bay Area was coming alive socially, musically, and politically. It was “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” before that term was coined.

The fall term of 1964 proved momentous. This was a presidential election year (Johnson vs. Goldwater), and students wanted and expected to use the campus as a venue for debating candidates and for advocating for civil rights and diverse other political issues. But in September of 1964, University officials banned the use of campus facilities for political advocacy and fundraising. Not surprisingly, students saw that ban as a blatant violation of our constitutional rights of free speech and our academic freedoms.

At noon on 1 October, an ex-student set up a table in Sproul Hall Plaza near the entrance to the campus, directly in front of the administration building. He was advocating for a civil rights organization. But because his action violated the new campus policy, the police drove onto campus and attempted to arrest him. A large crowd surrounded the police car, preventing it from moving. That vehicle’s roof became a dais for students to protest the attempted arrest and the administration’s restrictive policy.

Thus began the “Free Speech Movement,” which helped initiate a decade of student protest, most prominently against the Vietnam War. While growing up, we had all been told that America was the land of the free and that free speech was our constitutional right. To us, protesting the University’s curb on our freedoms was a moral and ethical obligation, not merely a political one.

The protest soon led to a campus-wide strike, and much of the University was shut down. However, my psychology professor (a university administrator and unsympathetic to the cause) told our class that anyone who chose not to take the next midterm exam (doing so would require crossing a picket line) would get an F on that exam. Fortunately, some other professors supported the students and postponed exams. In any case, studying under those tumultuous circumstances was impossible.

The protest reached a climax in early December. Thousands of students crowded into Sproul Hall Plaza and threatened to invade the main administration building unless the University met student demands.

Mario Savio (a 21-year-old philosophy student) was one of the speakers. He had previously been active in the civil rights movement and now used his experience effectively. Savio’s speech in the Sproul Hall Plaza was motivating and is justifiably famous. Taped versions of Savio’s speech are available online. Here’s the classic part:

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 upon 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.’’

Savio’s words ignited the crowd, and hundreds followed him into the administration building. A few days later, 800 students – still occupying Sproul Hall – were arrested and bused to Santa Rita Prison. This mass arrest was the largest in California’s history.

I was in the Plaza and was stunned by Savio’s words. I had never heard a speech so powerful, so moral, and so magnetic. I felt myself pulled toward Sproul Hall.

I started to join the crowd but hesitated. My reasons were complex and confusing. I knew my conservative parents would be horrified if I participated and mortified if I was later arrested. But at the same time, I was bothered by the ability of Savio’s words to sway the crowd – especially me. I knew (academically at least) that great speeches can turn crowds (consider Marc Anthony’s speech in Julius Caesar). I was experiencing the power of speech firsthand, and I did not like it.

Events were happening too quickly to think rationally. I scrambled to understand whether ethical and constitutional issues were driving me towards Sproul Hall, or was Savio’s speech pulling me forward. Probably both. But I didn’t like the feeling of being moved (manipulated?) by a speech, however compelling. Ultimately, I chose not to join the crowd. I needed to maintain my independence, which I would have sacrificed if I succumbed to Savio’s speech.

“Succumbed” is unfair to Savio and to the people who followed him. He believed in what he was doing. He was committed to that cause. Most of us (including me) thought he was correct in principle and action. His speech is forever and appropriately enshrined in the history of the 1960s.

Looking back, I’m unsure why I choose not to join the crowd. Was it fear of the uncertain consequences (familial, legal) of having an arrest record, or was it my decision not to be sucked in by a magnetic speech and crowd? In retrospect, I’d like it to have been exclusively the latter, but I suspect both were involved. In any case, both reasons pointed in the same direction – not to join the crowd. Thus, that decision proved easy, if tentative and challenging.

One of my roommates did join the students invading Sproul Hall. He was more politically committed than I ever was. He was arrested. A few years later, he moved to Canada to avoid the draft. I suspect he and I both feel that we made the correct decision for us as individuals. In any case, that tumult that fall in Berkeley was the beginning of an emotionally and politically challenging decade for the youth — especially for young men – of America.