Free Speech Movement
The Free Speech Movement ( FSM , Movement for Freedom ) was a student protest action in 1964 at the University of California, Berkeley was established in response to the prompting of the university management restriction on political activity opportunities for student groups. During the protests, students first called for their rights to free speech and research to be recognized .
prehistory
Even before the Free Speech Movement , numerous university groups were active in Berkeley that are attributed to the New Left and the New Social Movements . In 1957, a group called SLATE was formed on campus to protect civil rights, stop atomic bomb tests , abolish the death penalty and combat numerous other non-university problems.
In 1960, hundreds of students protested against the in San Francisco convenes House Un-American Activities Committee . The protest was answered by the police with a massive use of water cannons and the arrest of several dozen demonstrators.
In the following year, numerous civil rights activists and left-wing politicians such as Malcolm X and Herbert Aptheker were banned from speaking , which exacerbated the conflict between students and university management. Additionally, in 1963 and 1964 the university experienced a rapid increase in the number of students for which it was not prepared.
Many students in the American southern states used the semester break in the summer of 1964 to help with voter registration for Afro-American citizens and thus to enable them to exert political influence. The situation when he returned to the autumn semester of 1964 was a decided contrast, especially since the university management had meanwhile decided to have the police strictly enforce the ban on political agitation on and on campus. Since they felt encouraged by their work in Mississippi and other southern states, they were actively committed to upholding civil rights, so many students decided to take a confrontational course with the university administration.
On September 29, despite the ban, students set up information booths at the south entrance of the campus and refused to vacate them after being asked to do so by the administration. Five students were asked to report to the administration for disciplinary action. Instead of the five students, however, 500 showed up , including Mario Savio , who had become the leader of the student protest in Berkeley, and demanded that they should also be punished. The university administration then decided to also suspend three of the leaders of the protest march.
On the morning of October 1, 1964, about a dozen groups of students set up their information booths in front of Sproul Hall, the university's administration building. An assistant dean then asked one of the students present, Jack Weinberg, to identify himself. When he refused, the police arrested him. The removal in the emergency vehicle was prevented by several hundred rushing students with a seat blockade and the police car that had been surrounded was converted into a platform for speakers. The blockade lasted 32 hours and only ended when the president of the university, Clark Kerr , intervened. Jack Weinberg was released without charge.
Protest actions
In response to these events, numerous university groups formed the Free Speech Movement . Encouraged by the partial successes they had achieved, the students continued their actions. They were increasingly supported by doctoral students who wanted to express their displeasure with poor pay and numerous restrictions on the part of the university management.
In response to the announcement by the university administration on November 13th that only six of the eight students punished on September 29th would be lifted, the FSM announced its intention to disrupt the November 20th meeting of the Board of Directors of the University of California . American folk singer Joan Baez , showing solidarity with the students, appeared on the 20th and gave a concert for the thousands of students who had gathered near Sproul Hall, where the board of directors met.
After it became known that the boards of directors had overturned many of President Kerr's concessions and even increased the sentences on the two suspended students, including Mario Savio, over a thousand students occupied Sproul Hall on December 2, 1964 and called out to strike . The squatters converted the administration building into the "Free University of California" and turned the hallways and offices into rooms for a variety of workshops.
Initially, the university management did not take any measures against the activists and left the building to the occupiers. But when off-campus the news of the occupation of Sproul Hall made the rounds and the District Attorney of Alameda County to the governor Pat Brown said that one should not be seen yielding to these "rebels", ordered Brown the evacuation of. Just after two o'clock on December 3, 600 police officers from Berkeley and other surrounding communities surrounded the building. Kerr requested the students to vacate the building immediately and unconditionally. When they did not comply, the police began the eviction. Since the occupiers offered passive resistance , it took twelve hours for the Sproul Hall to be cleared. Overall, there were 773 arrests for trespassing , the largest mass arrest in California history. Most of those arrested were taken to the Santa Rosa County Jail, which was also where Huey Newton was held at the time .
On the afternoon of December 3, many thousands of students and university employees gathered in Sproul Plaza in front of the administration building and in the buildings and on the roofs of the surrounding buildings. The police operation was noted with incomprehension and horror. Shortly afterwards, a meeting of 800 professors from the university took place. At this meeting they showed their solidarity with the arrested and demanded that the police should be denied access to the campus in future. The professors decided to pay bail for the students concerned , and all 773 detainees were released the following day.
President Kerr scheduled a meeting of all university staff at the Hearst Greek Theater on December 7, which was attended by 16,000 people. There he read out a declaration signed by numerous deans of the faculties, which condemned the occupation, but signaled willingness to talk and understanding for the students. When Mario Savio went to the stage towards the end of the meeting to speak, he was taken into custody by security forces and dragged backstage. To prevent the rally from ending in student revolt, he was eventually released and given the opportunity to give a brief speech in which he encouraged students to continue participating in debates and advocating freedom of expression.
The following day, December 8th, the University Senate met to vote on the motions to guarantee freedom of speech. With 824 votes to 115, the Senate decided to lift the ban on political agitation . The decision was greeted with enthusiasm by thousands of students who had gathered in front of the building and were watching the vote over loudspeakers.
literature
- WJ Rorabaugh: Berkeley at War: The 1960s , Oxford University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-195-066677
- Jo Freeman: At Berkeley in the Sixties: The Education of an Activist, 1961-1965 , Indiana University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-253-216222
- Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey: The 1968 movement. Germany, Western Europe, USA , Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47983-9
- Thomas P. Becker / Ute Schröder (eds.): The student protests of the 60s , Archivführer-Chronik-Bibliographie, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-412-07700-3