Beyond the excellent education UC Berkeley is famously known for the second most important thing Berkeley is accredited to, is the Free Speech Movement (FSM). Fifty years ago, thousands of students and activists filled UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza to fight for their right for free speech.
The Free Speech Movement lead by famous student Mario Savio, took place during the 1964-65 academic year. Savio along with other students took over the campus in a 36-hour protest against the university administration because they had banned all on-campus political activities. This lead to months of protest by Savio and others students who were advocating so that the administration could acknowledged their right to free speech and academic freedom. After a couple months of protesting and about 800 student activists taken to jail, the goal was reached and the university granted all students the right to free speech.
2014 marks the 50th anniversary of this huge event in history and we are all so proud to say that we are Golden Bears. Savio and all the other brave students who fought for the right of free speech have impacted the world as a whole and have created a campus atmosphere that allows diverse cultures to emerge together and create a better education and university. We thank you Mario for allowing UC Berkeley to be a campus where students are allowed to be heard and of coarse we thank you for all the protests that have occurred on campus and will continue to occur, because we all believe in Free Speech.
Then
Now
To celebrate this amazing anniversary, UC Berkeley has some awesome events that will be going on this week as well as this month. Take a look…
For more events check out http://events.berkeley.edu/index.php/calendar/sn/fsm.html and for more info about the Free Speech Movement go on to their website http://fsm.berkeley.edu.
P.S. There is also a hashtag so that you tag all your social media posts… #fsm50