Free Speech Movement Archives
The Corporation: How It Came to
Be, and Its Plans
When we organized the 1994 FSM
reunion, Lee Felsenstein took on the task of producing its video documentation; and
circulated a modest manifesto concerning our status as elders and our responsibility to
pass on information and culture to younger generations, in forms that would resonate with
their experiences. He proposed the formation of an organization to secure the intellectual
property represented by the reunion videos and other FSM materials, and to facilitate its
use by documentarists speaking to youth. An ad-hoc committee convened at the reunion to
consider the complications of this proposal and met several times in 1995. Its most
substantive outcome was to leave Peter Franck convinced that the move was appropriate and
necessary.
Lee began again to polemicize for
this in 1996, and recruited Peter, Michael Rossman, and others who had been active in the
previous reunions and in tending the FSM's heritage, to undertake the organization of the
Free Speech Movement Archives (FSM-A) as a not-for-profit corporation. After Mario's death
in November, Marilyn Noble gave the project crucial focus and impetus by scheduling our
meetings at her Oakland home and providing for them lavishly. An appropriate Board of
Directors was invited, and most gathered at our first formal meeting on January 25, 1997.
Lee recruited Kathleen Piper to shepherd us through the mechanics of incorporation, and we
set to work seriously. It took longer than we expected, but we have brought the
organization to legal birth -- and in the process have engaged the first projects of
FSM-A, and begun to gather people with the skills to carry them through. The incorporation
papers were filed in March 1998. The documents qualifying FSM-A for tax-exempt 501(c)(3)
status will be filed later this year. We expect their approval, for our motives are as
holy as cherry pie -- to testify for free speech by passing our history on to our children
and beyond, along with the live charge and complexity of understanding it, as best we can.
Separately, you will find FSM-A's
formal statement of purposes, and a roster of its board of directors and officers. As all
were deeply involved with the FSM, we trust that you know enough about enough of them to
be assured that this effort is carried on by responsible hands and in a continuity of
spirit. Although it was unfeasible to constitute FSM-A as a formal membership
organization, we are well aware that we have a core constituency, and we hope to represent
you well. (Indeed, we mean to help you represent yourselves, in filling out our history
and connecting it to life.) As the tasks of bringing this formal vehicle to life are done,
we hope to involve more of you in exploring what can be furthered through it as the FSM-A
Web. We invite you to begin this exploration immediately, as the FSM-A Web site develops.
You will notice that although
FSM-A's purposes focus on the original document of the FSM, they are drawn broadly, to
legitimate its relation to a broad range of movements and developments, extending from
before 1964 to the present. They are drawn broadly in another sense as well. While
organizing FSM-A, we came to see that it was natural to integrate the other long-term
activities of the diffuse association of FSM veterans into its operation. One might take
this simply to mean that the maintenance of our mailing-list, the long-promised
newsletter, and the organizing of future reunions will proceed henceforth under our own
non-profit umbrella. But we see the relation as more organic. Much of the FSM's history
and interpretation has been recorded, in a complex welter of documents -- but even more
has not, and remains live in the memories and present lives of those who made this
movement and moved on. As much as paper or more, you are the document of the FSM. We are
the document together still, together with the echoes in Tianamen Square, and the signal
victory that FSM-A's legal director Peter Franck won in court in defense of the First
Amendment freedom of micro-radio broadcasting, before SWAT teams kicked down the doors of
three microstations in Florida to send a counter-signal. In this circumstance, our
mailing-list is an essential index to a vital, collective document still developing, which
our mailings and reunions, our symposia and memorials extend. We intend FSM-A to gather
and tend this larger document as an organic extension of the document of 1964; and expect
that it will prove a vehicle to elicit histories from many whose views and stories have
never been recorded. The Web site may facilitiate this; we invite you to help us explore.
FSM-A is undertaking several
projects beyond its own organization. One is to gather as much material pertaining to the
FSM as possible, from the documents of 1964 (and earlier) onward and through personal
writings and oral histories; and to arrange for its cataloging and adequate storage and
preservation. We invite you to contribute whatever you can. [See Bettina Aptheker's
sidebar, and the report on developments with the Bancroft Library.] A related project is
to develop the FSM-A Web site as a means to make the FSM's history accessible and useful,
in and beyond educational institutions. We expect that the site will become our main
interface with the public. Along with e-mail, it will also provide our most direct (and in
time our main) means of relation with our core constituency, the veterans and associates
of the FSM. We hope to take advantage of this without compromising communication with
those among us -- still the great majority -- who don't use on-line services. [See the
section on the FSM-A Web site. Susan Druding is directing its construction, and Michael
Rossman will coordinate its editorial direction.]
After helping organize a symposium
on Mario at the Organization of American Historians conference in spring 1997, Robby Cohen
has taken on direction of FSM-A's academic affairs, concerned with focussing critical
attention on the FSM as history. Teachers and scholars concerned with this should contact
him; we hope you'll spread this invitation. [See Robby's sidebar.] Another long-term
project involves the maintenance of our crucial mailing-lists, under the stewardship of Barbara Stack. Please help her to keep them current, and
growing. No planning has yet begun for the next FSM reunion. We invite you to
consider other projects that FSM-A might properly shelter and assist.
We hope that the news of what we've
done so far will gladden you, and that you will find ways to help us carry on the work of
FSM-A and make it useful in the world.
Michael Rossman, FSM-A Newsletter Editor
The Document of the FSM: An Initial Inventory
Subj: FSM Archive material scope Date: Wed, Jan 22, 1997 6:09 AM EDT
From: mrossman@igc.apc.org [Michael Rossman]
Dear Friends --
Don't be dismayed, you don't have to read it in detail. It's just a draft survey of the material conceivably relevant to the FSM Archive; I thought such a listing would help us to think of the material as tangible, before considering questions about its usefulness to whom. But if you have anything to add, pray tell.
The Document of the FSM: An Initial Inventory
This document is a skeletal draft of a comprehensive inventory of documents pertaining to the 1964 Free Speech Movement at U.C./Berkeley. In this beginning, I have listed the distinct bodies of material that occur to me as significant. Though I’ve tried to be systematic, surely many remain to be added. Together, they constitute the skeleton of an inventory. To flesh it out is to provide a detailed listing of each body of documentary material, and guidance to its access. Some of this work has been done already by archivists, researchers, and documenters of the FSM; their variously-detailed notes amount to a substantial beginning of this level of inventory.
I intend this document as a project of the FSM Archive [FSM-A], and trust that it will be developed further through a collective process. As pro-tem editor, I encourage any kind of information that anyone is able to add -- from additional "line items" identifying significant material, to expansions of and notes on the line items below, to detailed (partial) listings of particular bodies of material. I will maintain the expanding document in an orderly and useful form, and make it available through FSM-A.
It will be apparent that I understand the "event" of the FSM to include its prolonged resonances in social life and in the lives of its participants. In this regard, the list below is most sketchy, and will l bear much thought as well as active supplementation.
1964 -- The Free Speech Movement
"Official" FSM leaflets (c. 100), newsletters (4), press releases and other minor documents.
Leaflets, tracts, and reports from FSM-affiliated and independent groups, individuals, and committees.
Ron Anastasi's secretarial journal of FSM Steering Committee meetings.
Administrative Pressures and Student Political Activity at [UC/B] Manuscripts of 40 background studies; 24 were published by the FSM under this title.
Musical materials: the records _FSM Carols_ and _Sounds and Songs of the FSM_; the FSM Songbook; an unreleased tape of c. 7 more songs.
Photographic materials: negatives and prints held by Doug Wachter, Paul Fusco, and c. 20 other photographers, most contactable through D. Goines's and M. Kitchell's research.
Faculty ephemera and reports from departments and ad-hoc groups, including minutes (and tapes/transcripts?) of relevant Academic Senate meetings.
Administrative communications to students and faculty, within the local and statewide administrations, and to the press.
Campus press coverage by the Daily Californian.
Regional and national coverage in newspapers and journals of opinion.
TV station coverage. [Mark Kitchell has a comprehensive list of stations and where their remaining raw footages are archived.]
KPFA/Pacifica: broadcast coverage, raw audiotapes from field coverage and station interviews, and the record Is Freedom Academic. [How much is preserved in the Pacifica Archives?]
Raw and derived data from surveys of FSM participants conducted by Glen Lyons and Max Heirich (?)
[Copies of many of the surviving print documents are held in the Bancroft Library. Much of the Bancroft's holding is duplicated in private holdings, e.g. by Tom Weller and Rossman.]
1965-66 -- Immediate Aftermath
Audiotape interviews of 41 FSM participants by Marston Schultz, mid-1965 to early 1966. [Significant excerpts appear in Goines's book.]
Letters from the FSM defendants to the sentencing judge, comprising a collective self-interview and justification. [Several hundred are preserved, in Mal Burnstein's custody.]
A long series of newsletters from the defendants' legal-defense organization; the published legal brief of the FSM defense, with its lawyers' internal drafts and memoranda and subsequent documents of appeal; and transcripts of the trial and the sentencing. [Much of the legal material is archived at MCLI.]
Documents of short-term interpretation, including three books and numerous articles, appeared throughout 1965. Draper's narrative in The Berkeley Student Revolt remains the best print introduction to the FSM. Miller/Gilmore's Revolution at Berkeley includes 20 essays of contemporary opinion; Lipset/Wolin's The Berkeley Student Revolt includes 30 with some overlap, plus 40 documents related to the conflict, overlapping the 16 provided by Draper. [A thorough inventory of uncollected articles and essays should be made; the Bancroft may provide a starting-place.]
The CBS News documentary "The Berkeley Rebels" was in itself a significant media event. Its research involved extensive audiotaped interviews with more than the four featured FSM figures, and some transcripts survive; some raw film footage as well as the final cut may be available as resource. [Kitchell may know.]
Developments on campus immediately consequent to the FSM include the "Filthy Speech Movement" drama and Spider magazine, the Free Student Union, the Berkeley Free University, graduate and TA organizing, the "Muscatine Committee" report on undergraduate education, the Board of Educational Development, the experimental undergraduate ("Tussman") program, and the development of the anti-war movement, mainly through the Vietnam Day Committee. Extensive coverage of meetings on the first three topics was audiotaped by Marston Schultz. The respective bodies of internal and public documents by the student/youth, faculty, and administrative agencies involved, and of contemporary coverage in print, audio, and film media, all pertain to the FSM's documentation; and their more detailed survey and indexing is properly part of this project.
During this period, the influence of the FSM (or more properly, of its media treatment) was expressed in conflicts on 150 campuses. The local documents of these conflicts have been variously preserved; they are rich with explicit and implicit reference to the FSM, and constitute an important dimension of its extended document. A fuller inventory would identify these conflicts in chronological sequence, and survey which materials are still held where. A fair share of this work has by now been accomplished by researchers and archivists in the many locales; their scattered work brought together would amount to a core index of the document of the student movement during these years.
1965-?? -- Deeper and Longitudinal Studies
Norma Hahn et. al. began a long-term study of c. 100 FSM participants selected randomly from the arrest list. A first publication appeared c. 1966; a second was in preparation in the early 1970s; I've lost track since, but Dick Flacks should know. Their publications, and even more their raw research data, are an important dimension of the FSM document.
In The Spiral of Conflict: Berkeley, 1964 (Columbia U. Press; 1971), Max Heirich considered the dynamics of the affair in more detail, particularly on the administrative front; he may have followed this up by another (book?) publication. If his research materials were stored, they may constitute a useful guide to some dimensions of the FSM’s original document; and may themselves provide primary documents, if he did interviews.
1965-97 -- Mythic Evolution
The contested public legend of the FSM is essential to its full document. Relevant materials include at least:
(a) references to the FSM in the internal documents and journalistic coverage of conflicts at other campuses during next few years, and at Berkeley and elsewhere in the long term since;
(b) the detailed corpus of its treatment since by historians and other academics, in several hundred publications;
(c) the ritual outcroppings of retrospectives in the popular press, peaking in 1974, 1984, 1994, and 1996; and
(d) a persistent, diverse flow of reference to the FSM in popular and specialized consideration of the politics of the 1960s and its bearing on the present.
The academic materials and the recent ritual journalisms are much more accessible than the other materials, which are at least as important.
1982-88 -- "Berkeley in the Sixties"
Extensive interviews of FSM vets and others about the FSM, and of FSM vets about later politics and life, totaling c.100 hours, were audiotaped by Mark Kitchell (from 1982-85?) Some parts were transcribed; some at least of the tapes were discarded. I don't know where the tape and transcript residues are.
Relatively extensive interviews of similar sort were filmed by Kitchell later in this period. A scant fraction of the raw footage was used in the film; it remains a remarkable resource of its kind, wherever it is.
Archive of photographs pertaining to the FSM, from various photographers; ageing contact-list of photographers.
Partial archive of raw footage from TV station coverage of the FSM; comprehensive list of the stations involved, and where their footage is archived."Berkeley in the Sixties" -- two-hour video, with the second half of the first hour devoted to the FSM. The film's treatment of the FSM is its most thorough and coherent segment, and serves as a good introduction in this vivid medium.
1984 20th Anniversary Reunion
FSM-A's audiotapes of most of the formal proceedings (c. 12 events); some were transcribed.
Pacifica audiotape of the noon rally [and some panels?]
Amateur videotape of the noon rally [?]
News-station videotapes of the noon rally.
1991-92? -- The Free Speech Movement by David Goines
Audiotape interviews of nine FSM vets by Goines, with (at least partial) transcripts.
Contact-list of 20-30 photographers of the FSM.
1994 30th-Anniversary Reunion
FSM-A's videotapes and audiotapes [and transcripts], covering all formal presentations.
Raw video footage of interviews of 24 [?] FSM vets by Dexter/Gilles.
FREE@30 -- hour-long video documentary about FSM veterans, based on Dexter/Gilles interviews, centered on Mario. [FSM-A is invited to profit from distributing the film; and may also be entitled to some royalties from it.]
Clippings-file of national print-journalism coverage.
1996 -- Mario's memorial
FSM-A's videotapes and audiotapes of the event.
C-SPAN's videotapes and Pacifica's audiotapes of the event.
Extensive clippings-file of national print-journalism coverage
(obituaries and event reportage.)
File of obituary, retrospective, and reflective articles.
1997 -- FSM Mailing-list and Archive
Contact list of c. 1200 people related to the FSM and its residual affairs, including c. 750 participants and c. 300 arrestees. This is the only extant key to the collective memory and life-experience of the FSM's participants.
The Document of the FSM -- a progressive, collective inventory of documents pertaining to the FSM.
To this list should be added at least three prospective bodies of material. One is a gathering of Mario Savio's public speeches and writings. Another is a collection of individual stories, of how participation in the FSM affected our lives. Its nucleus is present in a small bouquet of personal tales in hand, that I hope to enlarge; a sociological approach extending Hahn's work of decades ago is also pregnant, awaiting someone who cares. Another yet is a collection of poems; the slight one first gathered has never been extended by the many written then and since.
From David Goines, The Free Speech Movement, 1993
Bibliography & Sources
As self-appointed FSM historian, throughout 1965 and into 1966 Marston Schultz taped interviews with people who had been active in the Free Speech Movement. He'd originally intended to "write the definitive book on the FSM, and make a film," but what with one thing and another, he never got around to it. So, he salted the recordings and photographs away under his bed, and the temperate climate of San Francisco preserved them against the possibility that they might someday be of interest. Learning that I was working on a history of the FSM, in 1991 he made them available to me. I have transcribed and edited those that I found useful, and added the material to this history of the FSM and subsequent events.
The interviews were made at 1-7/8" per second on quarter-inch reel-to-reel tape. The interviews are with: Dunbar Aitkins, Ron Anastasi, Bettina Aptheker, Gene Bardack, Brad Cleaveland, Joel Geier, David Goines, Jackie Goldberg, Suzanne Goldberg, (Steve?) Heist, Walt Herbert, Mona Hutchin, Patti Iiyama, Bob Kauffman, David Kolodny, Eric Lavine, Brian Mulloney, Larry Marks, University Dean McConnell, Dusty Miller, Tom Miller, Marilyn Noble, Sherwood Parker, Bill Porter, Paul Potter, Arthur Ross, Michael Rossman, Mario Savio, Alan Searcy, Brian Shannon, Joni Slatkin, Mike Smith, Hershel Snodgrass, Bob Starobin, Sue Stein, Jack Weinberg, Steve Weissman, Arleigh Williams and University Dean Williamson. Although I have listened to the recordings, I have not directly quoted all the people he interviewed. Marston often carefully noted the day and time, but sometimes forgot to mention the month and year. Sometimes no date was mentioned. Therefore, some interview dates are approximate.
Ron Anastasi: 1965
David Goines: July 19, 20 & 23, 1965
Jackie Goldberg: July 27, 1965
Mona Hutchin: October 19, 1965
Patti Iiyama: July 19, 20 & 23, 1965
Brian Mulloney: January 20, 1966
Larry Marks: July 23, 1965
Dusty Miller: July 31, 1965
Tom Miller and Gretchen Kittredge: July 31, 1965
Marilyn Noble: September 20, 1965
Sherwood Parker: 1965
Mario Savio and Suzanne Goldberg: Shortly after Mario and Suzanne were married in 1965. The interview was conducted with the assistance of Burton White of KPFA.
Brian Shannon: January 16, 1966
Sam Slatkin: January 19, 1965 and July 23, 1965
Mike Smith: January 17, 1966
Bob Starobin: July 23, 1965
Sue Stein: January 20, 1966
Jack Weinberg: Early 1965
Steve Weissman: 1965
Andy Wells: October 17, 1965 and January 7, 1966
Arleigh Williams: February 24, 1966
Of particular interest are KPFA recordings of the events of Thursday and Friday, October first and second, 1964. The KPFA field recordings were made by Burton White, Jerry Farrell, Mike Eisen, John Whiting, Al Silbowitz, Scott Keach and Dave Bacon, under the direction of Burton White.
Marston told me that the FSM paid radio station KPFA $300 to preserve their tapes of FSM events rather than record over them. He believes the tapes are stored in a KPFA archive in Los Angeles. The KPFA tapes that I refer to are duplicates or tapes made for public distribution.
In 1965 Marston taped Academic Senate meetings, ASUC meetings, Chancellor's meetings, events at the Spider table, rallies, Spider hearings, Executive Committee meetings, FSU meetings and speeches. Most of the 1965 meetings and events have to do with the Free Student Union and the Filthy Speech Movement.