23 HOW THE CIvIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT INFLUENCED THE FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT Kelly Dan jells OR hours, one thousand students packed all four floors of Sproul Hall F on at the University of California, Berkeley campus. They played cards, sang freedom songs like “We Shall Overcome,” studied or slept. On one floor, a Hanukah service toolc place, while on a different floor, a Laurel and Hardy movie played. Rumor had it that two girls lost their virginity that night. Yet, perhaps more than anything else, the students of the free Speech Movement waited in anxious anticipation. Police officers began to swarm around the outside of the building; they, too, waited. Everyone knew the arrests would come, but it was a matter of when. Many of the students in the hall were not even old enough to vote, but they were inspired by their cause, inspired by their yearning for equality in all areas of society regardless of race or age. Then, at ap proximately 3:45 am, on December 3, 1964, the police arrested the students one by one. As David Lance Goines, a prominent member ofthe free Speech Movement, described, “Two officers piclc me up with a ‘come-along’ hold, and involuntarily I rise to my feet, cursing and trying not to show that it hurts; I don’t want to frighten the others. It feels like they’re trying to break my wrist. I clamp my mouth shut.”6 It took twelve hours for the police to escort the 8oi student protestors out of the building and into various detention centers around the Bay Area. The students had participated in a successful sit-in that would be one of the many events to ensure success for the free Speech Movement. The students, however, could not have achieved such a success if it had not been for the Civil Rights Movement and the valuable tools they learned by participating in such a movement. The Civil Rights Movement, both in the South and the Bay Area, was an instrumental force in the creation of the free Speech Movement. It inspired students to protect their first 46 David Lance Goines, The Free Speech Movement: Coming ofAge in the 196os (Berkeley, California: Ten Speed Press, 1993), 12. VOLUME XX 2011 24 Kelly Danietis amendment rights, increased their motivation to secure those rights, and influenced the techniques and tactics they used to assure their constitu tionally granted rights. 4 Historians, journalists and participants have chronicled the events and outcomes of both the Civil Rights Movement and the Free Speech Movement extensively throughout the last fifty years and have reached a wide array of different conclusions regarding the importance and significance ofthe movements. Initially, historians appeared to view the social movements of the 196os independently of each other while questioning how they helped to initiate the creation of the “New Left” ideology. In the mid-198os, about twenty years after the advent Free Speech Movement, historians began to explore the impact that the Civil Rights Movement had on the movement in Berkeley. Some of the first works to explicitly do so were Doug McAdam’s Freedom Summer (1988) and Bret Eynon’s Community in Motion: The Free Speech Movement, Civil Rights, and the Roots of the New Left (published in the Oral History Review in 1989), which devoted significant space to the question of how the Civil Rights Movement specifically influenced the creation, structure and tactics ofthe Free Speech Movement while also entertain ing the traditional questions regarding the impact on the “New Left” ideology. This paper continues where McAdam and Eynon left off. Instead of splitting my attention between the creation of the “New Left” ideology and the influence of the Civil Rights Movement, I chose to focus my research specifically on the latter. Since the 198oS, participants of the Free Speech Movement have written a significant number of books and articles concerning their own perceptions of and experiences during the movement. Yet, these accounts have not devoted an adequate amount of attention to the question ofwhat ideological forces spurred the creation of the movement. For those interested in learning more about the links between the Civil Rights Movement and the Free Speech Movement, McAdam and Eynon are an excellent place to start. In addition, Free dom’s Orator: Mario Savio and the Radical Legacy of the 196os by Robert Cohen (2009) is the first published biography of Savio and devotes the first three chapters to the events that inspired his own growth as a social justice leader. The timing of the publication did not allow me to factor Cohen’s research into my own findings, but I believe this would be an excellent place for other historians to begin their own research, as Savio is the obvious linic between the Civil Rights Movement and the Free Speech Movement. ° “Chronology of Events: Three Months of Crisis,” Cal(fornia Monthly, Online Archive of California, http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/FSM/ (accessed 6 December zoo8), 6z; Goines, 12. Ex PosT FACTO 25 As many historians have noted, the Civil Rights Movement began to attract the attention and participation of students in the South during the early 196os with the direct action tactics ofsit-ins, economic boycotts and the Freedom Rides, which challenged the illegal segregation of interstate bus travel. The Civil Rights Movement in the South, however, did not directly affect the students of the North in large numbers until the summer of 1964 and the Mississippi Freedom Project. Civil rights leaders in the South created the concept of the Project in an attempt to bring about more attention to the South and the African American struggle for equal rights and protection. Almost i,ooo students from around the country arrived in Mississippi to spend the summer teaching in the Freedom Schools and registering black voters. The Freedom Schools allowed college aged students and teachers from the North to teach Southern African American students about their constitutional rights, the struggle for African American equality, and the ideology of the Civil Rights Movement. Students learned through group discussion and other relatively experimental teaching methods for the 196os. The act of registering black voters allowed Northern students to have first-hand knowledge of the discrimination that African Americans faced at the polling stations. After the murder of two white civil rights volunteers and one black civil rights volunteer at the beginning of the Mississippi Freedom Summer, the desired publicity and attention came in droves. Equally as important, in Mississippi the northern white students learned the philosophy and tactics of nonviolence. One of the most important things the civil rights leaders told the students was, “If you’re caught from behind, go limp.”5 This tactic became widely used during arrests for the students of the Bay Area Civil Rights Movement and the Free Speech Movement. Television stations as far away as Chicago and London televised the Freedom Summer training sessions that the northern students received before going into Mississippi. This meant that hundreds, perhaps thousands, more students caught a glimpse of the useful nonviolent tactics of the Civil Rights Movement without ever stepping foot in the South. In addition, northern students who did not take part in the Mississippi Freedom Summer had the ability to view televised southern attacks on white and black students who worked together. In 1970, President Nixon created the Report of the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest after the significant outbreak ofviolence across college campuses throughout the 196os and culminating with the deaths at Kent State University in 1970. The report’s authors acknowl edged the importance ofpolice attacks on interracial groups of students 48 Sally Belfrage, Freedom Summer (New York: The Viking Press, 1965), 17. VOLUME XX • 2011 26 Kelly Daniells when they noted, “The sight ofyoung black and white activists enduring with dignity the attacks of southern police inspired many Americans.” Northerners who viewed the atrocities of the South from their homes became increasingly supportive of the efforts of the students in Missis sippi.49 Those students who made the decision to travel to Mississippi to take part in the Freedom Summer had the added benefit of directly witnessing the leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commit tee (SNCC), the youth division of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) that considered themselves largely independent of the less radical organization led by Martin Luther King, Jr. This student run organization began with the coordination of the 196os sit-in move ment and continued as a powerful force in the Civil Rights Movement throughout the r96os. Significantly, those in leadership positions made themselves available to everyone who had questions or opinions regard ing how situations would be handled in Mississippi. SNCC leaders encouraged students participating in the Freedom Summer to voice their thoughts, many of which the leadership took into consideration. Mario Savio, the eventual leader of the Free Speech Movement, actively participated in the Mississippi Freedom Summer and clearly benefited from the practical lessons given by the leaders of SNCC, including Robert Moses and James Forman. As one volunteer noted, “I remember vividly, Moses and Mario Savio having this long discussion, talking in a way 50 which was beyond me, and in a language that I didn’t understand The direct contact that Savio had with Moses influenced his growth as a leader, which became apparent when comparing how his peers perceived him before the Freedom Summer and how they perceived him after he returned. When a SNCC volunteer interviewed Savio to gauge his aptitude for taking part in the Freedom Summer, she gave a lukewarm recommendation: “Generally what I have to say about him is this: not a very creative guy altho [sic] he accepts responsibility and carries it through if you explain to him exactly what needs to be done; not exceedingly perceptive on the movement, what’s involved, etc.; not very good at formulating notions with which one moves into the Negro community.” 51 Yet, when Savio returned from Mississippi he had the confidence and knowledge to lead the Free Speech Movement.