Intro to Public Writing: Carly Holladay

Counterpublics

“We’re human beings!” – Mario Savio, December 2nd, 1964

In the fall of 1964, the Free Speech Movement of University of Califonia, Berkley began as a result of the announced prohibition of political advocacy. This movement began as a peaceful campus-wide sit-ins where thousands of students had participated, and many were arrested or punished. Among this protest, Mario Savio held a speech in response to the arrest of Jack Weinberg, a former graduate student. This would be called the “Sit-In Address on the Steps of Sproul Hall.”

The address consisted of themes surrounding the right to protest, moral disobedience, and the resistance against buerocratic authority. A part of Savio’s speech that stuck out to me, “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!”

This specifically calls out the control university had upon its students, which would then extend to the control the government had on its people. He calls the university an “autocracy” implying the absolute power it had over its students was corrupt and dehumanizing. He, as well as many students, had felt like simple cogs in “the machine.”

This speech encapsulates the attitude of young adults at the time. The “don’t trust anyone over 30,” mindset of “Free Love” college students protesting against the war-bearing capitalist regime they believed to be The United States. It wasn’t about just the freedom of speech, but it was about the control the government had on its people at the time during the Vietnam War drafts. About the right for these white college students to protest alongside the Freedom Riders and civil rights activists.

This is a text representing the counterpublic of the American 60s youth, the “Hippie.” The only way this speech could have been held on this campus was by the thousands of other Berkley students surrounding the cop car keeping Weinberg. Refusing to let it go until all charges were dropped. This outright protest against, not just the university, but the government powers that supported them.

The public at the time would look down on this new wave of counterculture and scoff at their ideals that seemed to fundamentally work against the capitalist spread the United States was working toward. To the public, they were lazy and drug addicts who were traitors to their country. To the Hippie, they were fighting for their freedoms back at home while their friends and family fought overseas.

I chose this speech as my text because 1. I wanted to learn something new and 2. I wanted to cover the 60s. To me, the 60s were what we need today. A bunch of scrappy college students getting together and using their right to protest no matter the cost. As Savio put it, “We’re going to learn about freedom up there, and we’re going to learn by doing!”