We all know the stories. The students surrounding the squad car. Mario Savio’s clarion call to put “your bodies upon the gears.” The largest mass arrest in the state’s history. The Academic Senate’s victorious vote to secure free speech.
But for those who lived it, the Free Speech Movement wasn’t just a smash cut from struggle to success.
Take it from Anita Medal ’67 and Lynne Hollander Savio ’65, M.L.S. ’91. In the 1960s, they fought for free speech as students at UC Berkeley. Now, decades later, they’re helping keep the memory of the movement alive.
Medal and Savio joined the fight early, participating in meetings, picketing, and serving on the front lines during many of the movement’s milestones.
Decades later, Stephen M. Silberstein ’64, M.L.S. ’77 asked Savio for her help to preserve the spirit of that struggle in Moffitt Library’s Free Speech Movement Café. The cafe and its recent renovation — part of the vision for the Carol T. Christ Center for Connected Learning — were made possible by Silberstein’s generous support.
Savio enlisted Medal to assist in selecting photographs for the walls of the expanded space. The two had known each other as students but had grown closer after the 1996 death of Mario Savio, Lynne Hollander Savio’s husband and the movement’s best-known leader.
Silberstein, Savio, and Medal chose some indelible images: among them, Mario Savio addressing the crowd on Sproul Plaza atop the police car, marking an inflection point in students’ support; a two-photo sequence of the leader speaking at the Greek Theatre, then police officers pulling him from the lectern; and the reaction to the Academic Senate’s vote lifting restrictions on the content of speech on campus.
With refreshed photographs, art, and furniture — plus more natural light and seating — the cafe remains a campuswide destination where students can gather, grab a bite or drink, and immerse themselves in history.
“I hope that they find a relaxing and pleasant place to study, meet friends, and learn a little about the role students have played on the Berkeley campus in creating and extending some of the freedoms we enjoy today, which we did not always have here on campus,” Silberstein said.
We caught up with Medal and Savio to talk about the origins of their activism, their experiences in the movement (and in jail), the ongoing fight for free speech, and their advice for students carrying the torch.
How did you initially become involved with the movement? Did you have an inclination toward activism beforehand?
Savio: Well, I was a very lazy activist. I came from a semipolitical background. My parents had been involved when they were younger. I had a very active older sister. But I kind of avoided all of that until my sophomore year in college (before transferring to UC Berkeley), when I joined a demonstration.
There was an air raid drill, and everybody was supposed to take cover. We formed this little group that marched around the City Hall in Philadelphia, ostentatiously not taking cover. But people just sort of looked at us in bewilderment and had no idea what we were doing.
The Woolworth’s sit-in (in North Carolina, protesting racial segregation) was in 1960, and we organized at the campus I was on. We raised money for (the civil rights efforts in) the South, and then I got very involved in picketing. That was the birth of my activist career.
Medal: I grew up in L.A. I was a political virgin — I knew nothing.
I grew up in Hollywood, basically. I had bleach-blond hair. I was a makeup guru. I came to Berkeley and was like, “Oh, these women are all natural.” I dyed my hair brown and stopped wearing makeup.
In 1964, I was taking summer school classes, walking back and forth across campus. At (the Bancroft strip, along the southern edge of campus), people were talking about these three guys: Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman. (Civil rights activists Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman were murdered in June 1964, during the “Freedom Summer” voter registration drive in Mississippi.)
I’m listening to these people talk every day for, like, six weeks — “We can’t reach them,” “We found their car,” and “Oh, my God, they found them buried in shallow graves in the mud.”
Before the bodies were found, the campus speakers were speculating they were killed by law enforcement. To me, the police were our protectors and safe people. When it turned out the police, who were also KKK, were behind the murders of the three civil rights workers, my entire worldview shifted 180 degrees.
I joined CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality, that day, and that’s how I got active.
Can you remember your earliest memory of the Free Speech Movement erupting on campus? Were you at Sproul Plaza when the police car was being surrounded?
Savio: Well, first of all, that wasn’t the first event. After the edict came down that the Bancroft strip was no longer available for political and social activities, there was a lot of picketing. (Students had been engaged in activism and advocacy on the Bancroft strip for years. In September 1964, Katherine Towle, the dean of students, notified student groups that such use of the strip was prohibited.) I joined the picket line once or twice, and then the events started happening at Sproul.
Medal: The Free Speech Movement did not come out of a vacuum. It was a response to the suppression of political activity. And it all started with the Civil Rights Movement.
Savio: Also, the car sit-in did not come out of nowhere. People had been trying to organize that for several weeks. (On Oct. 1, activist Jack Weinberg was arrested while distributing civil rights literature on Sproul Plaza. He was placed in a police cruiser, which students surrounded. Mario Savio and other student activists spoke to the crowd from atop the vehicle in a major free speech flashpoint.)
The whole campus was not really aware of much going on. It took the rallies and then the car sit-in to mobilize the entire campus.
Medal: We just wanted our rights, one of them being free speech.
You were among the people arrested en masse at the Sproul Hall sit-in in December 1964. Can you talk about that and your experience in jail?
Savio: I found it an upsetting experience.
My parents were in San Francisco at the time — they were traveling around the country. My mother was a great worrier, and I wanted to phone her and let her know that I was OK, even though I was arrested. And I couldn’t get to the telephone.
We were talking before we sat down, when they finally brought us to the dining hall. (Fellow student activist) Bettina (Aptheker) and I and some other people had been saying, “Let’s start singing an FSM song in the dining hall.” Well, we spread the word. We got out one note, and the person in charge blew the whistle and said, “You won’t eat if you do this.” She threatened us with the authority of the guards, and we shut up. It was just so shocking to me to see how, when faced with a nonliberal administration (in jail), we caved, which we hadn’t done all semester.
Medal: You’re asking about the sit-in. The first thing I remember is (folk musician) Joan Baez singing and leading us up the stairs. At one point, the police stormed up the stairs. I was sitting right under the window at the top of the stairs, and one of them kicked me in the head. By the time I got to jail, I had a huge egg on my head.
Like Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman (inspired) so many of us, those arrests touched the hearts of a lot of faculty. They were lined up outside Santa Rita Jail to take us back to campus.
How did you get involved in the process of choosing the photographs for the walls of the Free Speech Movement Café? What was your thought process when selecting the images?
Savio: I had been involved with the cafe years ago, when it was first established. Steve Silberstein wrote to me about the remodel and asked me to work with the photographs. And I asked Anita, because she had just finished going through all the FSM photographs to turn them over to (The Bancroft Library), so she would know the pictures even better than I did. (Through their service on the Free Speech Movement Archives Board, both Savio and Medal have helped preserve and steward materials documenting the saga for acquisition by Bancroft and other repositories, ensuring they will be available to researchers and the public.)
There were certain events that we knew had to be there. There had to be a picture that showed the size of the (Oct. 1) rally, for example.
Medal: We were disagreeing about which one to use of the Greek Theatre. (On Dec. 7, at a campuswide meeting at the amphitheater, Mario Savio was dragged offstage by police officers.) We decided to use two, which I think was a good idea. I think it’s really powerful. It’s like a movie — it has a story.
In spite of the sexism of the day, there were women who were prominent in the FSM. We tried to have a representative selection of photos that would give people a sense of the depth and the breadth of what the movement was.
What do you hope students and visitors to the cafe gain from being surrounded by the history of the Free Speech Movement?
Savio: Well, for one thing, I hope they look at the pictures. I would like people to say, “Oh, what’s this?” and then maybe find out a little bit, and that can lead to, “Oh, did they do that at Berkeley?”
Medal: I hope their interest is piqued. I’m not interested in recognition. My investment in their looking up the FSM is for them to get the courage and motivation to be an activist. Because to this day, I think it’s important.
What would you say to the current generation of students who want to carry the mantle of free speech?
Savio: It’s like the Benjamin Franklin quote: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Well, you have free speech — if you can keep it. It’s a constant battle.
Medal: If they stick to it, and if they stay true to their ideals, and if they take action, they can win.
Savio: They have to organize. Ten people getting themselves arrested does nothing.
Medal: The only effective political movement is organized political movement — and mass political movement.
We were lucky enough to have built that up. It was a combination of factors: our planning, the elders’ wisdom, the mistakes of the university, the economic times, the optimism.
And if the circumstances aren’t ideal, you have to fight anyway.
This Q&A was edited for brevity and clarity.