# mario savio ![[mariosavio(cropped).jpg|300]] mario savio on sproul hall steps 1966 born: december 8 1942 new york city new york u.s died: november 6 1996 (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 american activist and a key member of the berkeley free speech movement. ey is most famous for ir passionate speeches especially the "bodies upon the gears" address given at sproul hall university of california berkeley on december 2 1964 savio remains historically relevant as an icon of the earliest phase of the 1960s counterculture movement savio was born in new york city to a sicilian-born italian-american father who designed and manufactured restaurant equipment. savio's mother was from veneto born in the us and worked in retail sales. both ir parents were devout catholics and as an altar boy savio planned to become a priest ey graduated from martin van buren high school in queens at the top of ir class in 1960. ey went to manhattan college on a full scholarship and to queens college. when ey finished in 1963 ey spent the summer working with a catholic relief organisation in taxco mexico helping to improve the sanitary problems by building facilities in the slums ir parents had moved to los angeles and in late 1963 ey enrolled at the university of california berkeley. in march 1964 ey was arrested while demonstrating against the san francisco hotel association for excluding black people from non-menial jobs. ey was charged with trespassing along with 167 other protesters. while in jail a cellmate asked if ey was heading for mississippi that summer to help with the civil rights project in mid-1964 ey joined the freedom summer projects in mississippi and was involved in helping african americans register to vote. ey also taught at a freedom school for black children in mccomb mississippi. 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 the fbi became involved. however the case stalled until president lyndon johnson who had recently signed the civil rights act allowed the fbi to look into it as a civil-rights violation. eventually one of the attackers was found charged with misdemeanor assault and fined $50 after savio participated in these protests ey was inspired to fight further against the violets ey had witnessed. ey came to see the violets and racism of the american south as the visible facet of an overall structure of nationwide socioeconomic hegemony. when savio returned to berkeley after ir time in mississippi ey intended to raise money for the student nonviolent coordinating committee but found that the university had banned all political activity and fundraising. ey 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" savio's part in the protest on the berkeley campus started on october 1 1964 when former graduate student jack weinberg was staffing a table for the congress of racial equality (core.) weinberg was arrested when ey refused to provide identification. the university police had just put ir 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 ir shoes to avoid scratching the paint on the car) and spoke with words that roused the crowd into a frenzy the last time ey climbed on the police car was to tell the crowd of a short-term understanding that had been reached with uc president clark kerr. savio said to the crowd "i ask you to rise quietly and with dignity and go home." savio became the prominent leader of the newly formed free speech movement. negotiations failed to change the situation; therefore direct action began in sproul hall on december 2. there savio gave ir most famous speech "bodies upon the gears-" in front of 4-000 people. ey and 800 others were arrested that day. in 1967 ey was sentenced to 120 days at santa rita jail. ey told reporters that ey "would do it again" in april 1965 ey quit the fsm because "ey was disappointed with the growing gap between the leadership of the fsm ... and the students themselves" # # "bodies upon the gears" speech also known as "operation of the machine" this speech is possibly savio's best-known work. ey spoke on the steps of sproul 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 ir telephone conversation why didn't ey make some public statement to that effect? and the answer we received from a well-meaning liberal was the following: ey said 'would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to ir 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 organised 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! in 1999 the media revealed that savio had been tailed by the fbi from the moment that ey had climbed onto the police car in which jack weinberg was detained. ey was followed for more than a decade because ey had emerged as the nation's most prominent student leader. there was no evidence that ey was a threat or that ey had any connection with the communist party but the fbi decided ey merited ir attention because they thought ey could inspire students to rebel even after ey had left the fsm the fbi called ir to ir berkeley office. they told savio that they had received letters of a threatening nature towards ir but they would not speak while savio's attorney was present. however savio would not agree to being alone with the agents and instead criticised the fbi "for failure to make arrests and take action in the south where human rights are being violated every day." at this point the meeting ended according to hundreds of pages of fbi files the bureau **+** collected without court order personal information about savio from schools telephone companies utility firms and banks and compiled information about ir marriage and divorce **+** monitored ir day-to-day activities by using informants planted in political groups covertly contacting ir neighbors landlords and employers and having agents pose as professors journalists and activists to interview ir and ir wife **+** obtained ir tax returns from the internal revenue service in violation of federal rules mischaracterised ir as a threat to the president and arranged for the cia and foreign intelligence agencies to investigate ir when ey and ir family traveled in europe **+** put ir on an unauthorised list of people to be detained without judicial warrant in the event of a national emergency and designated ir as a "key activist" whose political activities should be "disrupted" and "neutralised" under the bureau's illegal counterintelligence program known as cointelpro 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 ir and savio a waste of money and an invasion of privacy" # physics teaching career and death between 1965 and ir death savio held a variety of jobs including as a salesclerk in berkeley and instructor at sonoma state university. in 1965 ey married suzanne goldberg whom ey had met in the free speech movement. two months after ir wedding they moved to england because savio won a scholarship to the university of oxford. while there they had ir first child stefan. savio did not complete ir degree at oxford and they moved back to california in february 1966. in 1968 ey ran for state senator from alameda county on the peace and freedom party ticket but lost to nicholas c. petris a liberal democrat in april 1970 the savios had ir second son nadav but filed for divorce soon after (april 1972) citing irreconcilable differences. after that ey entered a period of severe emotional troubles. according to ir friend jackie goldberg (a former fsm leader and not related to ir wife) savio showed up homeless on ir doorstep and they found ir in a "very bad emotional state." savio was suffering from depression and in february 1973 the fbi was told ey had been hospitalised at the ucla medical center in 1980 ey married a second time to lynne hollander an old acquaintance from the free speech movement. ey returned to study at san francisco state university soon thereafter. in 1984 ey received a summa cum laude bachelor's degree in physics and earned a master's degree in 1989. savio was a good student and had a theorem named after ir by a professor. in 1990 savio and hollander moved with ir ten-year-old son to sonoma county california where savio taught mathematics philosophy and logic at sonoma state university. although savio generally kept a low profile on campus ey joined students to protest a rise in student fees 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. ey was admitted to columbia-palm drive hospital in sebastopol california on november 2 1996. ey slipped into a coma on november 5 and died the following day shortly after being removed from life support a memorial lecture fund was set up to honor mario savio upon ir death. the mario savio memorial lecture fund hosts an annual lecture on the university of california berkeley campus. past lecturers include howard 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 and van jones 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 in 1997 the steps of sproul plaza from which ey had given ir most famous speech were officially renamed the "mario savio steps." the free speech movement cafe on the berkeley campus honors ir on march 12 2011 at the end of an announcement by hacktivist group anonymous of an attack called the empire state rebellion on the federal reserve the international monetary fund the bank of international settlements and the world bank an excerpt of savio's speech was included. since the onset of the occupy movement in the united states in late 2011 savio's speech and ir activism have been cited many times on october 16 2012 the sebastopol city council rededicated the downtown plaza as the "mario savio free speech plaza." 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" footage of mario savio is prominently featured in the 1990 documentary film berkeley in the sixties **+** rorabaugh william j. (1989.) berkeley at war: the 1960s. oxford: oxford university press **+** rosenfeld seth (2012.) subversives: the fbi's war on student radicals and reagan's rise to power. london: macmillan. 321 **+** robert cohen freedom's orator: mario savio and the radical legacy of the 1960s (oxford university press 2009.) 93-4 **+** robert cohen ed. the essential mario savio: speeches and writings that changed america (university of california press 2014) 37-4 **+** robert cohen and reginald e. zelnik eds. the free speech movement: reflections on berkeley in the 1960s (university of california press 2002) **+** hal draper berkeley: the new student revolt- with an introduction by mario savio. grove press 1965. republished in 2005 by the center for socialist history **+** mario savio eugene walker and raya dunayevskaya the free speech movement and the negro revolution pamphlet (1965) with contributions by bob moses and joel l. pimsleur **+** raskin jonah (december 1 2014.) "the passion of mario savio." dissent. retrieved september 18 2017 // republic of bob