Mario Savio speech on the steps of Sproul Hall

KRON-TV news footage from December 2 1964 featuring scenes of activist Mario Savio delivering an impassioned speech on the steps of UC Berkeley's Sproul Hall to a large crowd of Berkeley Free Speech Movement supporters. College President Clark Kerr has refused to issue a public statement in support of the students and when they asked why not, Savio explains: "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!"

Also includes views of Savio going on to declare: "There's 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!"

Note that the original 16mm negative newsfilm source and 16mm positive reversal print of KRON's Assignment Four report 'Free Speech or Anarchy?', which was printed from the original negative remain missing. This clip was sourced from a 4K transfer of a 16mm duplicate print of 'Free Speech or Anarchy?', which was of considerably lower quaity than the original negative or print. This footage was also used in filmmaker Mark Kitchell's 1990 documentary film 'Berkeley in the Sixties'.

Opening graphic designed by Carrie Hawks.