Mario Savio

Re "'Berkeley Accepts Rebellious Past, $3.5-Million Donation," April 30: During the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley I was working for NBC News in San Francisco and covered Mario Savio's activities every day. There were many charges against the students. The most serious came when they were accused of breaking in and ransacking the office of Dr. Robert Gordon Sproul, president emeritus and a beloved figure on the campus. I went to his office and met a woman who was his secretary.

BEGINNING about noon on Oct. 1, 1964, Jack Weinberg sat in the back of a police car while hundreds of UC Berkeley students, singing "We Shall Overcome," encircled the cruiser and held it and its occupants captive for more than 30 hours. A succession of speakers, including Mario Savio, the emerging leader of the Free Speech Movement on campus, and future California Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, addressed the throng from the vehicle's roof. These events were not the first example of student activism in California or the Bay Area.

More than a thousand people gathered at the UC Berkeley campus Sunday to remember the late activist Mario Savio, leader of the campus' 1960s Free Speech Movement. Savio, who would have turned 54 on Sunday, died in a Sebastopol hospital Nov. 6 after suffering heart failure. In an emotional memorial highlighted by moments of humor, friends and family remembered a man who boldly climbed atop a police car in 1964 to blast a university policy banning political activity on campus.

Re "'Berkeley Accepts Rebellious Past, $3.5-Million Donation," April 30: During the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley I was working for NBC News in San Francisco and covered Mario Savio's activities every day. There were many charges against the students. The most serious came when they were accused of breaking in and ransacking the office of Dr. Robert Gordon Sproul, president emeritus and a beloved figure on the campus. I went to his office and met a woman who was his secretary.

Firebrand free speech activist Mario Savio, who rallied hundreds of UC Berkeley students during the 1960s Free Speech Movement, returned to campus Friday to encourage opposition to Proposition 187. Standing on the steps of the main administration building Savio addressed a crowd of more than 800 gathered to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement. He called on the audience to practice and support civil disobedience if the initiative receives court approval.

Who was Mario Savio?" my teenage son asked. "Somebody from the '60s?" Yes, and it's OK to not recognize the name; that was Savio's intention. No campus activist of that era more deserved the notice of the media, and no one ran from it so hard and so fast. At first, fame was unavoidable. In 1964, the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley launched a decade of youthful rebellion.

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 tacitly take part, and you've got to put your bodies on 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 machines will be prevented from working at all. --Mario Savio, Berkeley, Dec.

No one who remembers Mario Savio could get very excited about this year's prime examples of student protest--Bill Clinton and Berkeley's Naked Guy. Savio was the spokesman of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, the opening salvo of decades of student protest. It was Savio who climbed atop a campus police car in October, 1964, and with oft-described "fiery eloquence" addressed a crowd of 10,000.

In an addendum to your fine article about Mario Savio ("A Voice That Touched a Nation," Dec. 10), it should be noted that the University of California in a very extraordinary gesture has sent a letter of condolence to Savio's widow. In 1964 the UC regents approved of teargassing, arresting and finally suspending Savio because of his protest against the restrictions of students' rights on the campus. Last week, the current Board of Regents in an attempt to redress these mistakes of 1964 typified the greatness of the university by publicly acknowledging Savio's contribution to free speech.

Louise Yarnell's depiction of the world of the '64 Free Speech Movement (UC Berkeley Activists of '64 Return to Takeover Site," Dec. 4) as one where even the slightest hint of nonconformity could bring taunts of "Commie" or "Red" is unmitigated hogwash. Certainly those nonconformists who actually endorsed Communism and socialism as the wave of the future earned those comments. But there were many different forms of nonconformity in those days and the catcalls Yarnell describes were generally reserved for those who deserved them.

Embracing a tumultuous time in its history, UC Berkeley announced Wednesday that it has accepted a $3.5-million gift enshrining the Free Speech Movement that ushered in an era of student protests. The university that once arrested and kicked out movement leader Mario Savio will use the money to set up a book fund in his name, computerize its archives of student protests and build a Free Speech Movement Cafe.

In an addendum to your fine article about Mario Savio ("A Voice That Touched a Nation," Dec. 10), it should be noted that the University of California in a very extraordinary gesture has sent a letter of condolence to Savio's widow. In 1964 the UC regents approved of teargassing, arresting and finally suspending Savio because of his protest against the restrictions of students' rights on the campus. Last week, the current Board of Regents in an attempt to redress these mistakes of 1964 typified the greatness of the university by publicly acknowledging Savio's contribution to free speech.

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 tacitly take part, and you've got to put your bodies on 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 machines will be prevented from working at all. --Mario Savio, Berkeley, Dec.

More than a thousand people gathered at the UC Berkeley campus Sunday to remember the late activist Mario Savio, leader of the campus' 1960s Free Speech Movement. Savio, who would have turned 54 on Sunday, died in a Sebastopol hospital Nov. 6 after suffering heart failure. In an emotional memorial highlighted by moments of humor, friends and family remembered a man who boldly climbed atop a police car in 1964 to blast a university policy banning political activity on campus.

Who was Mario Savio?" my teenage son asked. "Somebody from the '60s?" Yes, and it's OK to not recognize the name; that was Savio's intention. No campus activist of that era more deserved the notice of the media, and no one ran from it so hard and so fast. At first, fame was unavoidable. In 1964, the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley launched a decade of youthful rebellion.

Embracing a tumultuous time in its history, UC Berkeley announced Wednesday that it has accepted a $3.5-million gift enshrining the Free Speech Movement that ushered in an era of student protests. The university that once arrested and kicked out movement leader Mario Savio will use the money to set up a book fund in his name, computerize its archives of student protests and build a Free Speech Movement Cafe.

Mario Savio, whose eloquent oratory at UC Berkeley sparked the Free Speech Movement that ushered in a decade of student protest in the 1960s, died Wednesday. He was 53. Savio, who collapsed last weekend from heart failure and never regained consciousness, died at a Sebastopol, Calif., hospital. His family allowed doctors to disconnect life support, a hospital official said.

Louise Yarnell's depiction of the world of the '64 Free Speech Movement (UC Berkeley Activists of '64 Return to Takeover Site," Dec. 4) as one where even the slightest hint of nonconformity could bring taunts of "Commie" or "Red" is unmitigated hogwash. Certainly those nonconformists who actually endorsed Communism and socialism as the wave of the future earned those comments. But there were many different forms of nonconformity in those days and the catcalls Yarnell describes were generally reserved for those who deserved them.