Mario Savio | |
|---|---|
.JPG) Mario Savio onSproul Hall steps, 1966 | |
| Born | (1942-12-08)December 8, 1942 New York City,New York, U.S. |
| Died | November 6, 1996(1996-11-06) (aged 53) Sebastopol, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley Queens College San Francisco State University |
| Occupation | Activist |
| Known for | "Bodies Upon the Gears" |
| Spouse | Suzanne Goldberg (1965–1972)Lynne Hollander (m. 1980) |
Mario Savio (December 8, 1942 – November 6, 1996) was an Americanactivist and a key member of theBerkeleyFree Speech Movement. He is most famous for his passionate speeches, especially the "Bodies Upon the Gears" address given atSproul Hall,University of California, Berkeley on December 2, 1964.
Savio remains historically relevant as an icon of the earliest phase of the1960s counterculture movement.[1]
Savio was born inNew York City to a Sicilian-born Italian-American father who designed and manufactured restaurant equipment. Savio's mother was fromVeneto, born in the US, and worked in retail sales. Both his parents were devoutCatholics and, as analtar boy, Savio planned to become a priest.[2]
He graduated fromMartin Van Buren High School inQueens at the top of his class in 1960. He went toManhattan College on a full scholarship, and toQueens College.[2] When he finished in 1963, he spent the summer working with a Catholic relief organization inTaxco,Mexico helping to improve the sanitary problems by building facilities in the slums.
His parents had moved toLos Angeles and in late 1963, he enrolled at theUniversity of California, Berkeley.[3] In March 1964, he was arrested while demonstrating against the San Francisco Hotel Association for excluding black people from non-menial jobs. He was charged with trespassing, along with 167 other protesters. While in jail, a cellmate asked if he was heading forMississippi that summer to help with theCivil Rights project.[2]
In mid-1964, he joined theFreedom Summer projects in Mississippi and was involved in helpingAfrican Americans register to vote.[4] He also taught at a freedom school for black children inMcComb, Mississippi.[3] In July, Savio, another white civil-rights activist and a black acquaintance were walking down a road in Jackson and were attacked by two men. They filed a police report where theFBI became involved. However, the case stalled until PresidentLyndon Johnson, who had recently signed theCivil Rights Act, allowed the FBI to look into it as a civil-rights violation.[5] Eventually one of the attackers was found, charged withmisdemeanor assault and fined $50.[2]
After Savio participated in these protests, he was inspired to fight further against the violence he had witnessed. He came to see the violence and racism of the American South as the visible facet of an overall structure of nationwide socioeconomic hegemony.[6] When Savio returned to Berkeley after his time in Mississippi, he intended to raise money for theStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, but found that the university had banned all political activity and fundraising.[4] He told Karlyn Barker in 1964 that it was a question as to whose side one was on. "Are we on the side of the civil rights movement? Or have we gotten back to the comfort and security of Berkeley, California, and can we forget the sharecroppers whom we worked with just a few weeks back? Well, we couldn't forget."[7]
Savio's part in the protest on the Berkeley campus started on October 1, 1964, when former graduate studentJack Weinberg was staffing a table for theCongress of Racial Equality (CORE). Weinberg was arrested when he refused to provide identification. The university police had just put him into a police car when someone from the surrounding crowd yelled, "We can all see better if we sit down." Soon those in front of and behind the police car starting sitting as the call "sit down" echoed through the crowd, trapping the car in the plaza. Savio, along with others during the 32-hour sit-in, climbed on top of the police car (after taking off his shoes, to avoid scratching the paint on the car[8]), and spoke with words that roused the crowd into a frenzy.[3]
The last time he climbed on the police car was to tell the crowd of a short-term understanding that had been reached with UC PresidentClark Kerr. Savio said to the crowd, "I ask you to rise quietly and with dignity and go home."[9] Savio became the prominent leader of the newly formedFree Speech Movement. Negotiations failed to change the situation; therefore direct action began in Sproul Hall on December 2. There, Savio gave his most famous speech, "Bodies Upon the Gears," in front of 4,000 people. He and 800 others were arrested that day. In 1967, he was sentenced to 120 days atSanta Rita Jail. He told reporters that he "would do it again."[2]
In April 1965, he quit the FSM because "he was disappointed with the growing gap between the leadership of the FSM ... and the students themselves."[10]
Also known as "Operation of the Machine", this speech is possibly Savio's best-known work. He spoke on the steps ofSproul Hall, on December 2, 1964:
We were told the following: If President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the regents in his telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public statement to that effect? And the answer we received, from a well-meaning liberal, was the following: He said, 'Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his board of directors?' That's the answer!
Well, I ask you to consider: If this is a firm, and if the board of regents are the board of directors; and if President Kerr in fact is the manager; then I'll 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 be—have any process upon us. Don't mean to be made into any product. Don't mean ... 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!
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 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![11]
In 1999, the media revealed that Savio had been tailed by the FBI from the moment that he had climbed onto the police car in which Jack Weinberg was detained. He was followed for more than a decade because he had emerged as the nation's most prominent student leader. There was no evidence that he was a threat or that he had any connection with theCommunist Party, but the FBI decided he merited their attention because they thought he could inspire students to rebel.[2]
Even after he had left the FSM, the FBI called him to their Berkeley office. They told Savio that they had received letters of a threatening nature towards him, but they would not speak while Savio's attorney was present. However, Savio would not agree to being alone with the agents, and instead criticized the FBI "for failure to make arrests and take action in the South wherehuman rights are being violated every day".[2] At this point, the meeting ended.
According to hundreds of pages of FBI files, the bureau:
The FBI's Savio investigation finally ended at the beginning of 1975, when an investigation into the FBI's abuse of power began. Savio's ex-wife, Suzanne Goldberg, said that the "FBI's investigation of her and Savio [was] a waste of money and an invasion of privacy".[2]
Between 1965 and his death, Savio held a variety of jobs, including as a salesclerk in Berkeley and instructor atSonoma State University. In 1965, he married Suzanne Goldberg, whom he had met in the Free Speech Movement. Two months after their wedding, they moved to England because Savio won a scholarship to theUniversity of Oxford. While there, they had their first child, Stefan. Savio did not complete his degree at Oxford, and they moved back to California in February 1966. In 1968, he ran for state senator from Alameda County on thePeace and Freedom Party ticket, but lost toNicholas C. Petris, a liberalDemocrat.[2] In April 1970, the Savios had their second son, Nadav, but filed for divorce soon after (April 1972), citing irreconcilable differences.[2] After that, he entered a period of severe emotional troubles. According to his friend Jackie Goldberg (a former FSM leader, and not related to his wife), Savio showed up homeless on her doorstep, and she found him in a "very bad emotional state." Savio was suffering fromdepression, and in February 1973 the FBI was told he had been hospitalized at theUCLA Medical Center.[2]
In 1980, he married a second time, to Lynne Hollander, an old acquaintance from the Free Speech Movement.[13] He returned to study atSan Francisco State University soon thereafter. In 1984, he received asumma cum laude bachelor's degree inphysics and earned a master's degree in 1989. Savio was a good student and had a theorem named after him by a professor. In 1990, Savio and Hollander moved with their ten-year-old son toSonoma County, California, where Savio taughtmathematics,philosophy, andlogic atSonoma State University. Although Savio generally kept a low profile on campus, he joined students to protest a rise in student fees.[14]
Savio had a history of heart problems and the day following a bitter and extended public debate with Sonoma State University's then-president,Ruben Armiñana, Savio had a heart attack.[14] He was admitted to Columbia-Palm Drive Hospital inSebastopol, California, on November 2, 1996. He slipped into a coma on November 5 and died the following day, shortly after being removed fromlife support.[15][16]
A Memorial Lecture Fund was set up to honor Mario Savio upon his death. The Mario Savio Memorial Lecture Fund hosts an annual lecture on theUniversity of California, Berkeley campus. Past lecturers includeHoward Zinn,Winona LaDuke,Lani Guinier,Barbara Ehrenreich,Arlie Russell Hochschild,Cornel West,Christopher Hitchens,Adam Hochschild,Amy Goodman,Molly Ivins,Jeff Chang,Tom Hayden,Angela Davis,Seymour Hersh,Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,Naomi Klein,Elizabeth Warren,Robert Reich, andVan Jones.[17][18]
The Memorial Fund also set up the Mario Savio Young Activist Award to honor an outstanding young activist with a deep commitment to human rights and social justice and the qualities of leadership ability, creativity, and integrity.[19]
In 1997, the steps ofSproul Plaza, from which he had given his most famous speech, were officially renamed the "Mario Savio Steps".[20] The Free Speech Movement Cafe on the Berkeley campus honors him.[21]
On March 12, 2011, at the end of an announcement byhacktivist groupAnonymous of an attack, called the Empire State Rebellion, on theFederal Reserve, theInternational Monetary Fund, theBank of International Settlements and theWorld Bank, an excerpt of Savio's speech was included.[22] Since the onset of the Occupy movement in the United States in late 2011, Savio's speech and his activism have been cited many times.[23][24]
On October 16, 2012, the Sebastopol City Council rededicated the Downtown Plaza as the "Mario Savio Free Speech Plaza".[25] On November 15, 2012, the "Mario Savio Speakers' Corner" was dedicated on the campus of Sonoma State University. At the ceremony, Lynne Hollander Savio told the audience, "I hope you will use this free speech corner often, to advocate and organize with dignity and responsibility for the causes you believe in."[26]
Footage of Mario Savio is prominently featured in the 1990 documentary filmBerkeley in the Sixties.[27]
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