Editing Mario Savio

{{Short description|American activist (1942–1996)}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Mario Savio
| image              = MarioSavio (cropped).JPG
| alt                = 
| caption            = Mario Savio on [[Sproul Plaza|Sproul Hall]] steps, 1966
| birth_name         = 
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1942|12|8}}
| birth_place        = [[New York City]], [[New York (state)|New York]], U.S.
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1996|11|6|1942|12|8}}
| death_place        = [[Sebastopol, California]], U.S.
| nationality        = American
| other_names        = 
| alma mater         = [[University of California, Berkeley]]<br />[[Queens College, City University of New York|Queens College]]<br />[[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 [[University of California, Berkeley|Berkeley]] [[Free Speech Movement]]. He is most famous for his 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 [[counterculture of the 1960s|1960s counterculture movement]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.dailycal.org/2013/08/28/berkeley-in-the-sixties-aims-to-affect-the-present |title='Berkeley in the Sixties' aims to affect the present |first=Grace |last=Lovio |date=August 28, 2013 |newspaper=[[The Daily Californian]]}}</ref>

==Early life==
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 his parents were devout [[Catholics]] and, as an [[altar boy]], Savio planned to become a priest.<ref name=RosenfeldSFC>{{Cite news|url=http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Mario-Savio-s-FBI-Odyssey-How-the-man-who-2718306.php |first=Seth |last=Rosenfeld |title=How the man who challenged 'the machine' got caught in the gears and wheels of J. Edgar Hoover's bureau |newspaper=[[San Francisco Chronicle]] |date=October 10, 2004 |page=16}}</ref>

He graduated from [[Martin Van Buren High School (New York City)|Martin Van Buren High School]] in [[Queens]] at the top of his class in 1960. He went to [[Manhattan College]] on a full scholarship, and to [[Queens College]].<ref name=RosenfeldSFC/> When he finished in 1963, he spent the summer working with a Catholic relief organization in [[Taxco]], [[Mexico]] helping to improve the sanitary problems by building facilities in the slums.

His parents had moved to [[Los Angeles]] and in late 1963, he enrolled at the [[University of California, Berkeley]].<ref name=Rorabaugh21>Rorabaugh, pp. 21–22.</ref> In March 1964, he was arrested while demonstrating against the San Francisco Hotel Association for excluding black people from non-menial jobs. He was charged with trespassing, along with 167 other protesters. While in jail, a cellmate asked if he was heading for [[Mississippi]] that summer to help with the [[Civil rights movement|Civil Rights project]].<ref name=RosenfeldSFC/>

==Activism==
In mid-1964, he joined the [[Freedom Summer]] projects in Mississippi and was involved in helping [[African Americans]] register to vote.<ref name=Mowatt>{{Cite news|first=Raoul V. |last=Mowatt |title=Mario Savio; Spirit of Free Speech Movement Dies |newspaper=[[San Jose Mercury News]] |date=November 7, 1996 |page=1A}}</ref> He also taught at a freedom school for black children in [[McComb, Mississippi]].<ref name=Rorabaugh21/> 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 of 1964|Civil Rights Act]], allowed the FBI to look into it as a civil-rights violation.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://vault.fbi.gov/mario-savio/mario-savio-part-01-of-09/view |title=Mario Savio |publisher=FBI}}</ref> Eventually one of the attackers was found, charged with [[assault|misdemeanor assault]] and fined $50.<ref name=RosenfeldSFC/>

After Savio participated in these protests, he was inspired to fight further against the violence he had witnessed. He came to see the violence and racism of the American South as the visible facet of an overall structure of nationwide socioeconomic hegemony.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mario-Savio|title=Mario Savio {{!}} American educator and student free-speech activist|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en|access-date=2019-06-03}}</ref> When Savio returned to Berkeley after his time in Mississippi, he intended to raise money for the [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]], but found that the university had banned all political activity and fundraising.<ref name=Mowatt/> He 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."<ref>{{Cite news|first=Karlyn |last=Barker |title=Rebel with a Cause |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=November 8, 1996 |page=D01}}</ref>

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 he refused to provide identification. The university police had just put him 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 his shoes, to avoid scratching the paint on the car<ref>{{Cite news |last=Streeter |first=Kurt |date=2024-06-06 |title=U.C. Berkeley's Leader, a Free Speech Champion, Has Advice for Today's Students: Tone It Down |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/06/us/berkeley-carol-christ-protest-free-speech.html |access-date=2024-06-09 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>),  and spoke with words that roused the crowd into a frenzy.<ref name=Rorabaugh21/>

The last time he 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."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt138n97zh&&doc.view=entire_text |title=Demonstrators Sign Pact; Groups Will Meet Today |date=October 5, 1964 |work=The Daily Californian}}</ref> 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 his most famous speech, "Bodies Upon the Gears," in front of 4,000 people. He and 800 others were arrested that day. In 1967, he was sentenced to 120 days at [[Santa Rita Jail]]. He told reporters that he "would do it again."<ref name=RosenfeldSFC/>

In April 1965, he quit the FSM because "he was disappointed with the growing gap between the leadership of the FSM&nbsp;... and the students themselves."<ref>{{Cite news|first=Michael |last=Taylor |title=Stirring Up a Generation; Mario Savio's passionate speeches and mesmerizing delivery became synon |newspaper=San Francisco Chronicle |date=December 8, 1996 |page=1/Z3}}</ref>

==="Bodies Upon the Gears" speech===
Also known as "Operation of the Machine", this speech is possibly Savio's best-known work. He spoke on the steps of [[Sproul Hall]], on December 2, 1964:

{{blockquote|We were told the following: If President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the regents in his telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public statement to that effect? And 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!

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!<ref>Rosenfeld, 216–217.</ref>}}

===FBI surveillance===
In 1999, the media revealed that Savio had been tailed by the FBI from the moment he climbed onto the police car in which Jack Weinberg was detained. He was followed for more than a decade because he had emerged as the nation's most prominent student leader. To avoid harassing phone calls, Savio was in the habit of listing himself in the telephone book under aliases such as [[José Martí]], [[Wallace Stevens]], and [[David Bohm]], and the FBI recorded that as well.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Saul |first=Scott |title=A Body on the Gears |magazine=[[The Nation]] |date=March 11, 2010 |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/body-gears/}}</ref> There was no evidence to suggest that Savio was a national security risk, or that he had a connection with the [[CPUSA|Communist Party]], but the FBI decided he merited their attention because they thought he could inspire students to rebel.<ref name=RosenfeldSFC/>

Even after he left the FSM, the FBI called him to their Berkeley office. They told Savio they had received letters of a threatening nature towards him, but they would not speak while his attorney was present. However, Savio would not agree to being alone with the agents, and instead criticized the FBI "for failure to make arrests and take action in the [[Southern United States|South]] where [[human rights]] are being violated every day".<ref name=RosenfeldSFC/> 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 his marriage and divorce.
*Monitored his day-to-day activities by using informants planted in political groups, covertly contacting his neighbors, landlords and employers, and having agents pose as professors, journalists, and activists to interview him and his wife.
*Obtained his tax returns from the [[Internal Revenue Service]] in violation of federal rules, mischaracterized him as a threat to the president and arranged for the [[CIA]] and foreign intelligence agencies to investigate him when he and his family traveled in Europe.
*Put him on an unauthorized list of people to be detained without judicial warrant in the event of a national emergency and designated him as a "Key Activist" whose political activities should be "disrupted" and "neutralized" under the bureau's illegal counterintelligence program known as [[COINTELPRO]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/60s-Free-Speech-leader-got-caught-in-FBI-web-2718540.php |first=Seth |last=Rosenfeld |title=60s Free Speech Leader got caught in FBI web |newspaper=San Francisco Chronicle |date=October 10, 2004 |page=A1}}</ref>

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 her and Savio [was] a waste of money and an invasion of privacy".<ref name=RosenfeldSFC/>

==Physics, teaching career, and death==
Between 1965 and his death, Savio held a variety of jobs, including as a salesclerk in Berkeley and instructor at [[Sonoma State University]]. In 1965, he married Suzanne Goldberg, whom he had met in the Free Speech Movement. Two months after their wedding, they moved to England because Savio won a scholarship to the [[University of Oxford]]. While there, they had their first child, Stefan. Savio did not complete his degree at Oxford, and they moved back to California in February 1966. In 1968, he ran for state senator from Alameda County on the [[Peace and Freedom Party]] ticket, but lost to [[Nicholas C. Petris]], a liberal [[U.S. Democratic Party|Democrat]].<ref name=RosenfeldSFC/>  

In April 1970 the Savios had their second son, Nadav, but filed for divorce soon after (April 1972), citing irreconcilable differences.<ref name=RosenfeldSFC/> After that, he entered a period of severe emotional troubles. According to his friend Jackie Goldberg (a former FSM leader, and not related to his wife), Savio showed up homeless on her doorstep, and she found him in a "very bad emotional state." Savio was suffering from [[Mood disorder|depression]], and in February 1973 the FBI was told he had been hospitalized at the [[Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center|UCLA Medical Center]].<ref name=RosenfeldSFC/>

In 1980 he married a second time, to Lynne Hollander, an old acquaintance from the Free Speech Movement.<ref>Taylor, ''San Francisco Chronicle.''</ref> He returned to study at [[San Francisco State University]] soon thereafter. In 1984, he 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 him by a professor. In 1990, Savio and Hollander moved with their 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, he joined students to protest a rise in student fees.<ref name=CHE>{{Cite news|url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/from-legendary-activist-to-adjunct-agitator |title=From Legendary Activist to Adjunct Agitator |newspaper=Chronicle of Higher Education |date=February 1, 2020}}</ref>

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.<ref name=CHE/> He was admitted to Columbia-Palm Drive Hospital in [[Sebastopol, California]], on November 2, 1996. He slipped into a coma on November 5 and died the following day, shortly after being removed from [[life support]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Mario-Savio-dies-free-speech-activist-3114627.php|title = Mario Savio dies; free speech activist| newspaper=Sfgate |date = 7 November 1996 | last1=Hatfield | first1=Larry D. }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520928619-031/html|doi=10.1525/9780520928619-031|chapter=Mario Savio's Second Act: The 1990s|title=The Free Speech Movement|year=2019|pages=519–530|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520928619|s2cid=242867006}}</ref>

==Legacy==
A Memorial Lecture Fund was set up to honor Mario Savio upon his 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 (journalist)|Jeff Chang]], [[Tom Hayden]], [[Angela Davis]], [[Seymour Hersh]], [[Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.]], [[Naomi Klein]], [[Elizabeth Warren]], [[Robert Reich]], and [[Van Jones]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.savio.org/the_lectures.html|title=The Mario Savio Young Activist Award :: The Lectures|website=www.savio.org|access-date=2019-06-03}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Khan |first=Sara |title=Van Jones, award recipients speak at 16th annual Mario Savio Memorial Lecture |newspaper=The Daily Californian |date=November 29, 2012 |url=http://www.dailycal.org/2012/11/28/van-jones-award-recipients-speak-at-16th-annual-mario-savio-memorial-lecture/ }}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.savio.org/young_activist_award.html|title=The Mario Savio Young Activist Award :: The Award|website=www.savio.org|access-date=2019-06-03}}</ref>

In 1997, the steps of [[Sproul Plaza]], from which he had given his most famous speech, were officially renamed the "Mario Savio Steps".<ref>{{Cite news|first=Sandy |last=Kleffman |title=School goes full circle on Savio steps near Sproul Plaza named for Free Speech Leader |newspaper=San Jose Mercury News |date=December 4, 1997 |page=1B}}</ref> The Free Speech Movement Cafe on the Berkeley campus honors him.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Free Speech Movement Café |url=https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/about/fsm-cafe |access-date=2022-11-23 |website=UC Berkeley Library |language=en}}</ref>

On March 12, 2011, at the end of an announcement by [[Hacktivism|hacktivist group]] [[Anonymous (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.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Manthey |first=Dominic|title=Mario Savio, "An End to History" (2 December 1964)|journal=Voices of Democracy|issue=10|year=2015|pages=41–54|url=https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Manthey-Savio.pdf}}</ref> Since the onset of the Occupy movement in the United States in late 2011, Savio's speech and his activism have been cited many times.<ref>{{cite web|last=Welsh|first=Nick|title='The Post' Defends the Fourth Estate in Heroic Thriller|url=https://www.independent.com/2018/01/22/post-defends-fourth-estate-heroic-thriller/|work=[[Santa Barbara Independent]]|date=January 22, 2018|access-date=September 25, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title="Bad Education," "The Photograph," "Most Wanted" and more journalism movies|url=https://www.quillmag.com/2020/11/25/bad-education-the-photograph-most-wanted-and-more-journalism-movies/|work=[[Society of Professional Journalists|Quill]]|date=November 25, 2020|access-date=September 25, 2021}}</ref>

On October 16, 2012, the Sebastopol City Council rededicated the Downtown Plaza as the "Mario Savio Free Speech Plaza".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://ci.sebastopol.ca.us/sites/default/files/events-and-meetings/approved_october_16_2012_city_council_meeting_minutes.pdf |title=Sebastopol City Council Meeting Minutes |date=October 16, 2012 |page=8 |accessdate=2012-11-29 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121208225714/http://ci.sebastopol.ca.us/sites/default/files/events-and-meetings/approved_october_16_2012_city_council_meeting_minutes.pdf |archivedate=December 8, 2012 }}</ref> 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."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Zimmerman |first=Nicole R. |title=Mario Savio Speakers' Corner Dedicated at SSU |newspaper=[[The Press Democrat]] |date=November 15, 2012 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140401012959/http://rohnertpark.towns.pressdemocrat.com/2012/11/news/mario-savio-speakers-corner-dedicated-at-ssu/ |archivedate=April 1, 2014 |url=http://rohnertpark.towns.pressdemocrat.com/2012/11/news/mario-savio-speakers-corner-dedicated-at-ssu/ }}</ref>

Footage of Mario Savio is prominently featured in the 1990 documentary film ''[[Berkeley in the Sixties]]''.<ref>{{cite web|last=Lovio|first=Grace|title=Berkeley in the Sixties' aims to affect the present|url=https://www.dailycal.org/2013/08/28/berkeley-in-the-sixties-aims-to-affect-the-present/|work=[[The Daily Californian]]|date=August 28, 2013|access-date=September 25, 2021}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

===Bibliography===
* {{Cite book |last=Rorabaugh |first=William J. |authorlink=W. J. Rorabaugh |year=1989 |title=Berkeley at War: The 1960s |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0198022522 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Rosenfeld |first=Seth |authorlink=Seth Rosenfeld |year=2012 |title=Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-1429969321 }}

==Further reading==
* Robert Cohen, ''Freedom's Orator: Mario Savio and the Radical Legacy of the 1960s'' (Oxford University Press, 2009). {{ISBN|978-0-19-518293-4}}
* Robert Cohen, ed., ''The Essential Mario Savio: Speeches and Writings that Changed America'' (University of California Press, 2014) {{ISBN|978-0-520-28337-4}}
* Robert Cohen and Reginald E. Zelnik, eds., ''The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s'' (University of California Press, 2002). {{ISBN|0-520-23354-9}}
* [[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]], ''[http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt896nb2rx/ The Free Speech Movement and the Negro Revolution]'', pamphlet (1965) with contributions by [[Bob Moses (activist)|Bob Moses]] and Joel L. Pimsleur.
* {{Cite web |last1=Raskin |first1=Jonah |title=The Passion of Mario Savio |work=[[Dissent (American magazine)|Dissent]] |date=2014-12-01 |url=https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/passion-mario-savio-berkeley-free-speech-movement |accessdate=2017-09-18 |df=mdy-all }}

==External links==
* {{Wikiquote-inline}}
* [http://www.savio.org The Mario Savio Memorial Lecture Fund]
* [https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mariosaviosproulhallsitin.htm Text, Audio, Video of Sproul Hall Sit-in Address], December 2, 1964
* [http://vault.fbi.gov/mario-savio FBI file on Mario Savio]
* [http://www.fsm-a.org/Mario_Savio.html The Free Speech Movement Archives]
* [http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/FSM/ The UC Berkeley Bancroft Library Free Speech Movement Digital Archives] (includes a RealAudio videoclip of the Savio 1964 Dec. 2 speech, available at [http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/FSM.html a sub-page])
* Mario Savio lecture given at Sonoma State University: [https://archive.org/details/cubanc_00002 "The philosophy of a young activist"] (April 20, 1993)

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[[Category:1942 births]]
[[Category:1996 deaths]]
[[Category:Activists for African-American civil rights]]
[[Category:Activists from California]]
[[Category:American democracy activists]]
[[Category:American people of Italian descent]]
[[Category:American Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:COINTELPRO targets]]
[[Category:American free speech activists]]
[[Category:Martin Van Buren High School alumni]]
[[Category:San Francisco State University alumni]]
[[Category:Sonoma State University faculty]]
[[Category:Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]]
[[Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni]]