Mario Savio on Sproul Hall steps, 1966

Mario Savio (December 8, 1942 – November 6, 1996) was an American political activist and a key member in the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. He is most famous for his passionate speeches, especially his "place your bodies upon the gears" address given at Sproul Hall, University of California, Berkeley on December 2, 1964. Image File history File links Mario Savio on Spraul Hall steps at UC Berkeley in 1966 This picture was taken in 1966 at a ralley in Berkeley. ... Image File history File links Mario Savio on Spraul Hall steps at UC Berkeley in 1966 This picture was taken in 1966 at a ralley in Berkeley. ... is the 342nd day of the year (343rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link will display the full 1942 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 310th day of the year (311th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... Activism, in a general sense, can be described as intentional action or inaction to bring about social or political change. ... Sather Tower (the Campanile) looking out over the San Francisco Bay and Mount Tamalpais. ... The Free Speech Movement was a student protest which began in 1964 - 1965 on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of student Mario Savio and others. ... Sather Tower (the Campanile) looking out over the San Francisco Bay and Mount Tamalpais. ...

Early life

Mario Savio was born in New York to a Sicilian steel worker father. Both his parents were devout Catholics and, as a young altar boy, Savio was planning to be a priest.^[1] He graduated from Martin Van Buren High in Queens at top of his class in 1960 and then went to Manhattan College on a full scholarship as well as Queens College.^[2] When he finished in 1963, he spent the summer working with a Catholic relief organization in Taxco, Mexico helping to improve the sanitary problems by building facilities in the slums. His parents had moved to Los Angeles and that autumn he enrolled at University of California, Berkeley.^[3] In March the following year he was arrested while demonstrating against the San Francisco Hotel Association for excluding blacks from non-menial jobs. He was charged with trespassing, along with 167 other protesters. While in jail a cellmate asked if he was heading for Mississippi that summer to help with the Civil Rights project.^[4] This article is about the state. ... Sicilian (Lu Sicilianu, Lingua Siciliana) is the Romance language spoken in Sicily, Italy. ... The Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination of Christianity with over one billion members. ... This article is about religious workers. ... This article is about the borough of New York City. ... The main entrance to Manhattan College Manhattan College is a Roman Catholic liberal arts college in the Lasallian tradition in New York City. ... Queens College, Queens College or Queens College is the name of more than one institution, see: Queens College, Cambridge Queens College, Charlotte Queens College, Hong Kong Queens College, London Queens College, New York Queens College, Nassau The Queens College, Oxford Queens College was the... Santa Prisca church in Taxco Aerial view of Taxco Taxco (full name: Taxco de Alarcón) is an antique colonial silver-mining center located in the northern reaches of the Mexican state of Guerrero. ... Flag Seal Nickname: City of Angels Location Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates , Government State County California Los Angeles County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,290. ... Sather Tower (the Campanile) looking out over the San Francisco Bay and Mount Tamalpais. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... Civil rights or positive rights are those legal rights retained by citizens and protected by the government. ...

Activism

During the summer of 1964 he joined the Freedom Summer projects in Mississippi and was involved in helping African Americans register to vote.^[5] He also taught at a freedom school for black children in McComb, Mississippi.^[6] In July, Savio, another white civil rights activist and a black acquaintance were walking down a road in Jackson and were attacked by two men. They attempted to press charges but the case went nowhere until President Lyndon Johnson, who had only recently passed the Civil Rights Act, urged the FBI look into it as a civil rights violation. Eventually one of the attackers was found, but was only fined $50 and charged with misdemeanor assault.^[7] Freedom Summer (also known as the Mississippi Summer Project) was a campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register to vote as many African American voters as possible in Mississippi, which up to that time had almost totally excluded black voters. ... African Americans, also known as Afro-Americans or black Americans, are an ethnic group in the United States of America whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan and West Africa. ... McComb is a city located in Pike County, Mississippi, about 80 miles south of Jackson, just off of I-55. ... Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908–January 22, 1973), often referred to as LBJ, was an American politician. ... Several United States laws have been called the Civil Rights Act: Civil Rights Act of 1866[1] aimed to buttress Civil Rights Laws to protect freedmen and to grant full citizenship to those born on U.S. soil except Indians. ... The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a federal criminal investigative, intelligence agency, and the primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... Assault is a crime of violence against another person. ...

When Savio returned to Berkeley after his time in Mississippi, he was intent on raising money for SNCC, but found that the university had banned all political activity and all fund-raising.^[8] He told Karlyn Barker in 1964 that it was a question as to whose side you are on. ‘Are we on the side of the civil rights movement? Or have we gotten back to the comfort and security of Berkeley, California, and can we forget the sharecroppers whom we worked with just a few weeks back? Well we couldn’t forget.’^[9] Savio’s part in the protest on the Berkeley campus started when on October 1, 1964, former student Jack Weinberg was manning a table for CORE. The University police had just put him in the police car when someone from the surrounding crowd yelled ‘sit down.’ Savio, along with others during the 32-hour sit-in, took off his shoes and climbed on top of the car and spoke with words that roused the crowd into frenzy.^[10] The last time he climbed on the police car was to tell the crowd of a short-term understanding that had been met with UC President Clark Kerr. Savio said to the crowd, "I ask you to rise quietly and with dignity, and go home", and the crowd did exactly what he said. After this Savio became the prominent leader of the newly formed Free Speech Movement.^[11] Negotiations failed to change the situation; therefore direct action began in Sproul Hall on December 2. There, Savio gave his most famous speech, on the "operation of the machine", in front of 4,000 people. He and 800 others were arrested that day. In 1967 he was sentenced to 120 days at Santa Rita Jail. He told reporters that ‘[he] would do it again.’^[12] SNCC may refer to: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, one of the primary institutions of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer du Congo, the national railway company of the Democratic Republic of the Congo St Neots Community College, an 11-18 Educational... is the 274th day of the year (275th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also Nintendo emulator: 1964 (emulator). ... CORE may refer to: The Congress of Racial Equality in the USA. The Coordinated Online Register of Electors in the United Kingdom. ... Clark Kerr (May 17, 1911 – December 1, 2003) was the first Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley (1952–1958) and the 12th President of the University of California (1958–1967). ... The Free Speech Movement was a student protest which began in 1964 - 1965 on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of student Mario Savio and others. ... Santa Rita Jail is a county jail located in Dublin, Alameda County, California adjacent to the Camp Parks Reserve Forces Training Area, and operated by the Alameda County Sheriffs Office. ...

In April 1965, he quit the FSM because ‘he was disappointed with the growing gap between the leadership of the FSM … and the students themselves.’^[13]

Later life

Between 1965 and his death, Savio held a variety of jobs, including work as a sales clerk in Berkeley.^[14] In 1965, Savio married his first wife, Suzanne Goldberg, whom he had met at the Free Speech Movement. Two months after they were married, they moved to England, as Savio had won a scholarship to the University of Oxford. While there, the Savios had their first son, Stefan. He did not complete his time at Oxford because of emotional problems, and they moved back to California in February 1966.^[15] In 1968, he ran for state senator from Alameda County on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket, but he was unsuccessful and lost to Nick Petris, a liberal Democrat.^[16] In 1979, Goldberg had a second son called Nadav, but in 1972 she divorced Savio because of ‘irreconcilable differences.’^[17] In 1980, he married his second wife, Lynne Hollander, an old acquaintance from the Free Speech Movement.^[18] He returned to education at San Francisco State University during their marriage. In 1984, he received a summa cum laude bachelor’s degree in Physics and then went on to achieve a master’s degree in 1989.^[19] In 1990, Savio and Hollander moved with their ten-year-old son Daniel to Sonoma County, California, where he taught mathematics, philosophy and logic at Sonoma State University.^[20] For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... The University of Oxford (informally Oxford University), located in the city of Oxford, England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... United States Peace and Freedom Party logo The Peace and Freedom Party (PFP) is a ballot-listed minor political party in California. ... The Democratic Party is one of the two major United States political parties. ... San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State, State and SFSU) is a public university located in the southwestern San Francisco, California, bordering Lake Merced and Lowell High School, near Fort Funston and Daly City, near the San Mateo County line. ... Latin honors are Latin phrases used to indicate the level of academic distinction with which an academic degree was earned. ... A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor demonstrates the Meissner effect. ... Sonoma County is on the northwest coast of California, one of the northernmost parts of the greater San Francisco Bay Area, U.S. Its population at the 2000 census was 458,614. ... For other meanings of mathematics or uses of math and maths, see Mathematics (disambiguation) and Math (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation). ... Logic (from Classical Greek λόγος logos; meaning word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason, or principle) is the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. ... Sonoma State University is a public, coeducational business and liberal arts college affiliated with the California State University system. ...

Death

Savio had a history of heart problems and was admitted to Columbia-Palm Drive Hospital in Sebastopol, California on November 2, 1996. He slipped into a coma on November 5 and died the following day,^[21] shortly after being removed from life support.^[22] Postcard view of Sebastopol, Sonoma County, California over the orchards to the town Sebastopol is a town in Sonoma County, California, United States, approximately 52 miles north of San Francisco. ... is the 306th day of the year (307th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... For other uses, see Coma (disambiguation). ... For other uses of life support, see Life support (disambiguation) Life support, in the medical field, refers to a set of therapies for preserving a patients life when essential body systems are not functioning sufficiently to sustain life unaided. ...

Legacy

A Memorial Lecture Fund was set up to honor Mario Savio upon his death. The MSMLF hosts an annual fall lecture on the University of California, Berkeley campus. Past lecturers include Angela Davis, Jeff Chang, Tom Hayden, Seymour Hersh, Amy Goodman, Christopher Hitchens, Adam Hochschild, Cornel West, Barbara Ehrenreich, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Lani Guinier, Winona LaDuke, and Howard Zinn. Berkeley Davis Irvine Los Angeles Merced Riverside San Diego Santa Barbara Santa Cruz UC Office of the President in Oakland The University of California (UC) is a public university system in the state of California. ... Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American socialist organizer, professor who was associated with the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). ... Tom Hayden outside the 2004 Democratic National Convention Thomas Emmett Tom Hayden (born December 11, 1939) is an American social and political activist and politician, most famous for his involvement in the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. ... Seymour Myron Sy Hersh (born April 8, 1937 Chicago) is an American Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, DC. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters. ... Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! Amy Goodman b. ... Christopher Eric Hitchens (born April 13, 1949) is a British-American author, journalist and literary critic. ... Adam Hochschild (born 1942) is an American writer. ... Cornell West redirects here. ... Barbara Ehrenreich (born August 26, 1941, in Butte, Montana) is a prominent liberal American writer, columnist, feminist, socialist and political activist. ... Arlie Russell Hochschild is professor of sociology at the University of California-Berkeley. ... Lani Guinier (born 1950) is arguably one of the foremost American civil rights scholars in the United States. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Howard Zinn (born August 24, 1922) is an American historian, political scientist, social critic, activist and playwright, best known as author of the bestseller[5] , A Peoples History of the United States. ...

The Memorial Fund also set up the Mario Savio Young Activist Award to honor an outstanding activist under 30 with a deep commitment to human rights and social justice and the qualities of leadership ability, creativity, and integrity. Recipients of the award since it was first bestowed in 1998 include Noemi Ramos, Erin Durban, Jason West, Harmony Goldberg, Genevieve Gonzales, Jim Keady, Jia Ching Chen, Niki Fortunato Bas, and Michael Leon Guerrero. Jason West is the mayor of the village of New Paltz, and a member of the Green Party. ...

In 1997, the steps of Sproul Plaza, from which he had given his most famous speech, were officially renamed the “Mario Savio Steps".^[23] A March 20, 2003 rally against the War in Iraq on the steps of Sproul Plaza, held by the Berkeley Stop the War Coalition. ...

Controversy with the FBI

In 1999, it was revealed that Savio had been trailed by the FBI from the moment that he had climbed on to the police car that harboured Jack Weinburg. He was followed for more than a decade ‘because he had emerged as the nation’s most prominent student leader.’^[24] There was no evidence that he was a threat or that he had any connection with the Communist Party, but the FBI decided he needed their attention because they thought he could potentially inspire students to rebel.^[25] Even when he had quit the FSM, the FBI called him to their Berkeley office. They told Savio that they had received letters of a threatening nature towards him, but they would not speak with Savio’s attorney present. However, he would not agree, and instead criticised the FBI ‘for failure to make arrests and take action in the South where human rights are being violated everyday.’^[26] At this point the meeting ended. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a federal criminal investigative, intelligence agency, and the primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor of the United States Federal Protective Service. ... The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is one of several Marxist-Leninist groups in the United States. ... Human rights are rights which some hold to be inalienable and belonging to all humans. ...

According to hundreds of pages of FBI files, the bureau:

• Collected, without court order, personal information about Savio from schools, telephone companies, utility firms and banks and compiled information about his marriage and divorce.
• Monitored his day-to-day activities by using informants planted in political groups, covertly contacting his neighbors, landlords and employers, and having agents pose as professors, journalists and activists to interview him and his wife.
• Obtained his tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service in violation of federal rules, mischaracterized him as a threat to the president and arranged for the CIA and foreign intelligence agencies to investigate him when he and his family traveled in Europe.
• Put him on an unauthorized list of people to be detained without judicial warrant in event of a national emergency, and designated him as a "Key Activist" whose political activities should be "disrupted" and "neutralized" under the bureau's illegal counterintelligence program known as COINTELPRO.^[27]

The investigation finally ended at the beginning of 1975 and at that point an investigation in to the FBI’s abuse of power began. Savio’s ex-wife, Suzanne Goldberg, said that the ‘FBI’s investigation of her and Savio [was] a waste of money and an invasion of privacy.’^[28] Seal of the Internal Revenue Service Tax rates around the world Tax revenue as % of GDP Part of the Taxation series        IRS redirects here. ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... Warrant has several meanings: In law, a warrant is a form of authorization, such as A writ issued by a judge. ... Counterintelligence or counter-espionage is the act of seeking and indentifying espionage activities. ... COINTELPRO (an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert and illegal projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. ... Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to control the flow of information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. ...

Quotes

• “We have an autocracy which runs this university. It’s managed. We were told the following: If President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the Regents in his telephone conversation, why didn’t he make some public statement to that effect? And the answer we received, from a well-meaning liberal, was following: He said, ‘Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his board of directors?’ That’s the answer! Well I ask you to consider: if this is a firm, and if the board of regents are the board of directors, and if President Kerr in fact is the manager, then I tell you something — the faculty are a bunch of employees! And we’re the raw material! But we’re a bunch of raw materials that don’t mean to have any process upon us, don’t mean to be made into any product, don’t mean to end up being bought by some clients of the university, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We’re human beings!”
• “There’s 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!”^[29]
• On modern education; “The University is a vast public utility which turns out future workers in today’s vineyard, the military-industrial complex.’
• On politics: ‘I am not a political person. My involvement in the Free Speech Movement is religious and moral… I don’t know what made me get up and give that first speech. I only know I had to.”
• On civil disobedience: “You can’t disobey the rules every time you disapprove. However, when you’re considering something that constitutes an extreme abridgement of your rights, conscience is the last resort."^[30]

Forms of government Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      An autocracy is a form of government in which the political power is held by a single self appointed ruler. ... Look up liberal on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Liberal may refer to: Politics: Liberalism American liberalism, a political trend in the USA Political progressivism, a political ideology that is for change, often associated with liberal movements Liberty, the condition of being free from control or restrictions Liberal Party, members of... A union (labor union in American English; trade union, sometimes trades union, in British English; either labour union or trade union in Canadian English) is a group of workers who act collectively to address common issues. ... President Dwight Eisenhower famously referred to the military-industrial complex in his farewell address. ... For other uses, see Civil disobedience (disambiguation). ... François Chifflart (1825-1901), The Conscience (after Victor Hugo) Conscience is an ability or faculty or sense that leads to feelings of remorse when we do things that go against our moral values, or which informs our moral judgment before performing such an action. ...

References

External links

• http://americahurrah.com/NBC/MarioSavio.htm
• Text, Audio, Video of Sproul Hall Sit-in Address delivered 2 December 1964
• The Free Speech Movement Archives (includes information about the event surrounding the speech; the Mario Savio Memorial Lecture; and Mario Savio's 1996 Memorial)
• The UC Berkeley Bancroft Library Free Speech Movement Digital Archives (includes a RealAudio videoclip of the Savio 1964 Dec. 2 speech, available at a sub-page)
• The Mario Savio Memorial Lecture Fund