Opinion

Mario Savio

By DOUGLAS LUMMIS

Mario Savio died a few weeks ago. It was the first time his name had been in the papers for years, yet everyone recognized it. Mario had the strange fate of being famous for something he did long ago, something that could be neither repeated nor continued. He lived a quiet life, but when he died people said, "Ah, Mario Savio, remember? Berkeley, 1964."

In 1964 at the University of California at Berkeley, there was one tiny free speech area near the university's main entrance. But that fall the school administration decided to prohibit student political activity even there. The various student groups joined in protest, and the Free Speech Movement (FSM) was born.

At first the movement was small. Then one day Jack Weinberg, a member of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) decided to engage in civil disobedience. He set up a table in the plaza in front of the administration building and began passing out leaflets. This was prohibited. The administration sent in the police.

As it happened, the police car arrived at noon, exactly at the time when an FSM rally was scheduled. I remember the shock of coming to the rally and finding a police car with a student arrested inside. Somebody shouted, "Sit-in!" Immediately hundreds of students sat around the car, and it couldn't move.

The next problem was what to do about the rally. This was the moment when Mario had the insight that changed his life and left a mark on history. "We'll have it here," he said. He grabbed a microphone, took off his shoes, climbed on the roof of the police car, and began speaking to the growing crowd.

The rally was transformed from a mere gathering to an act of people power. The police were prevented, peacefully but forcefully, from completing the arrest. The car was transformed from an instrument of police power to a platform for free speech ― speakers on top, prisoner inside.

The rally continued all day and all night. Speaker after speaker climbed on the car and explained why freedom of speech is something worth fighting for. By the evening of the second day, some five thousand students were gathered around the car. Since a university is made up of its students, to end the sit-in by force would mean the university would have to arrest itself. Weinberg was released.

Among the many speakers, Mario Savio somehow captured the imagination of the crowd best. A shy man, he spoke haltingly. Unlike some smooth, skilled speakers, he would be thinking as he spoke. So listening to him was also an act of thinking. The honesty, clarity and moral force of his speeches made him the spokesman of the FSM. For the next few months he was nationally famous.

After the FSM ended (in victory), Mario left the public spotlight and returned to his studies. Occasionally after that he made public speeches, but he never again was ― or tried to be ― a public figure. He carried out a great political act, but he was never a politician.

Shukan ST: Dec. 6, 1996

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