Excerpt
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now, a look back at a movement some historians believe profoundly changed American culture, politics and education.
“NewsHour” special correspondent Spencer Michels reports has the story.
WOMAN: We’re going to start off by playing a little speech some of you may remember.
MARIO SAVIO, Free Speech Movement: And I will tell you something. The faculty are a bunch of employees, and we’re the raw material.
SPENCER MICHELS (NewsHour): The sounds of a familiar past blared over Sproul Plaza on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. The voice, from 1964 was that of the late Mario Savio, the most famous leader of the free speech movement, the first big on-campus student movement in the country.
MARIO SAVIO: And you have got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, pile on the apparatus, and you have got to make it stop.
SPENCER MICHELS: These were 20-somethings in the ’60s, civil rights activists who were protesting a university policy forbidding political activity on campus.
Now they were back to keep the past alive and relate it to the present.
JACK WEINBERG, Free Speech Movement: The most significant student movement of our era is taking place in Hong Kong.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
SPENCER MICHELS: Graduate student Jack Weinberg sparked the rebellion 50 years ago, when he was arrested for refusing to take down an organizing table.
JACK WEINBERG: They made the mistake of bringing a police car onto campus. This give me five, 10 minutes to stand up, to draw a crowd, make a speech.
SPENCER MICHELS: Weinberg spent 32 hours in the car as the crowds swelled to 6,000 and the movement was born. The university eventually eliminated the restrictions on political activity.
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