Mario Savio
Mario Savio (born December 8, 1942 in New York City , † November 6, 1996 in Sebastopol (California) ) was an American civil rights activist and spokesman for the student movement of the 1960s in the United States .
Life
The son of a factory worker from Sicily grew up in New York and studied physics and philosophy at first at Manhattan College and Queens College , later at the University of California, Berkeley , California in 1963 . In March 1964 he was arrested for demonstrating against the San Francisco Hotel Association , which bans blacks from some jobs. The following summer, he worked as a civil rights campaigner in Mississippi , helping African-Americans get on the electoral roll. In 2010, the US band Linkin Park used his most famous speech in the song Wretches And Kings . The black and white recording of his speech was also shown during live performances. An excerpt from this speech is used on the album Obsolete by the band Fear Factory as the intro to the song Timelessness .
His work as the leader of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement became prominent ; on December 2, 1964 , he gave a famous speech: On the basis of statements by the rector in connection with the student protests that had previously taken place, he criticized the rector for managing and treating the university like a company , the students are probably the product that is made in this factory . This was followed by a sentence that has become famous, according to which the operation of the machine (initially the technocratically organized university) would sometimes become so unbearable that it had to be sabotaged or stopped in order to find a social discourse about it. However, the phrase was later often interpreted and used with a view to society as a whole.
Mario Savio was prevented from continuing his studies at an American university. So he left the USA and went to England in the fall of 1965. Since Savio was not interested in fame , he later stayed in the background, in 1984 and 1989 he completed bachelor's and master's degrees in physics at San Francisco State University .
In the year of his death, he taught math and philosophy at Sonoma State University . He died of a heart attack.
In 2004 it was revealed that Savio was the subject of massive FBI surveillance , even after he left the Free Speech Movement. After he left Berkeley University, he was followed for more than 10 years and classified as a "key activist".
Quotes
"To me, freedom of speech is something that represents the very dignity of what a human being is ... It is the thing that marks us as just below the angels."
"To me, free speech means something that accurately reflects the dignity of a human being ... It is what puts us just below the angels ."
"... 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! "
“… And if Rector Kerr is actually the manager [of the university], then I'll tell you one thing: The members of the faculty are a bunch of employees! And we are the raw material! But we are a bunch of raw materials that don't want to be processed, that don't want to be turned into a product, that don't want to be sold to clients of the university, be it the government, the industry, the trade unions, whoever! We are 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! "
“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so despicable, makes you so sick in the heart that you can no longer participate, not even passively, and you have to throw your body into the gears and levers of the machine, into the whole machine and you have to stop it! And you have to show the people who keep it going, who own it, that until you are free, the machine will be prevented from working. "
literature
- Robert Cohen: Freedom's orator. Mario Savio and the radical legacy of the 1960s. Oxford University Press, Oxford [u. a.] 2009, ISBN 978-0-19-518293-4 .
Web links
- Part of speech (English)
- Mario Savio: An End to History
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Savio, Mario |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American civil rights activist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 8, 1942 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 6, 1996 |
| Place of death | Sebastopol (California) |