
Oct. 1 marked the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement, a protest that lasted for three months but set the stage for the turbulent 1960s.
On that day, thousands of UC Berkeley students protested on the Cal campus, surrounding a police car parked near Sproul Plaza. Jack Weinberg was inside the car and stayed inside it for 32 hours, having been arrested for distributing political material on university grounds despite rules that forbade it.
A graduate student, Mario Savio, climbed on top of the police car at one point and demanded Weinberg’s release. He also spoke out against the university’s restrictions against handing out political material. That impromptu speech catapulted him into the leadership of what would come to be known as the Free Speech Movement.
Read more, and enjoy these photos taken by Ted Friedman at the rally held 50 years later at the same spot at UC Berkeley when FSM veterans — including Weinberg and Savio’s wife, Lynne Hollander Savio — joined current students to mark the movement’s golden anniversary.






See more photos of the free speech movement celebration rally in the Berkeleyside Flickr pool.
Related:
Events mark 50th anniversary of free speech movement (09.22.14)
Berkeleyside’s Uncharted: The Berkeley Festival of Ideas is in downtown Berkeley on Oct. 24-25. Read all about it and buy your tickets at www.berkeleyideas.com