The Free Speech Movement — 50 Years Later

Fifty years ago students at UC Berkeley, many of them returned from the Freedom Summer in the South, demanded the right to engage in political activity on campus. When their demands were denied by the University adminstration, they created a militant, nonviolent movement that occupied the Administration building. Eight hundred students were arrested, touching off a massive student strike.
In conjunction with the 50th Anniversary Free Speech celebration at Berkeley starting on September 26, three veterans of the of the Free Speech Movement will discuss the events of 50 years ago and their relevance today.

Featured speakers

Lynne Hollander Savio
Worked with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, the Poor People’s Corporation in Mississippi and Cambridge Friends of SNCC. Organizer and Communications Director for SEIU Local 509 (Mass. Social workers); chair of the Mario Savio Memorial Lecture and the FSM 50th Anniversary Reunion; Associate Producer of “FSM: A Play with Music about a Moment that Changed America.”

Mike Smith
FSM executive board member, veteran of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and Selma, Alabama March. Dismissed from UC for antiwar activity 1966; Oakland Seven member acquitted of conspiracy for organizing Stop the Draft Week 1969. Registered Nurse; current member of the Sonoma County Democratic Party Central Committee

Jack Weinberg
His arrest on the Berkeley campus in 1964 was the spark that ignited the Free Speech Movement. 1960s activist in the Bay Area civil rights, student and anti-war movements, organizer and first State Chairman of the California Peace and Freedom Party; trade union activist; currently Senior Policy Advisor to IPEN, a network of environmental health NGOs working to eliminate toxic pollution.

Cosponsored by Unitarian Universalists for Peace and Justice-San Francisco
Wheelchair accessible • Snacks and tea served