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Mario Savio's Free Speech


Public talks          Interviews          Writings

Mario Savio earned the respect and trust of his comrades in the FSM and throughout life, less for the passionate eloquence that brought him media renown than because he spoke from his heart through a powerful mind in a search for moral clarity. Though he spoke for many, he never spoke or wrote as an authority. Even at his most didactic, he testified as an individual openly striving to make sense from fields of conflicting values; and in this represented us as deeply as by the sense he made.

Mario was tormented by the media hype that cast him as *MARIO SAVIO*, larger than life. He would have hated any advertisement of the words he left, that claimed them to be more than they simply were. Though we've only begun to assemble their sprawling array, we know that the sum of what can be retrieved will seem small as the fruit of three decades; for he seldom spoke publicly or agreed to interviews after the mid-Sixties, until the last years of his life. Considered as a political analyst and moral philosopher, Mario's thought was never systematically developed or set forth. He expressed it freshly instead in response to occasion, to particular, concrete circumstances calling him to participate, to consider and commit himself -- as he had done in the FSM, and before it acclaimed him as leader. Though one may trace through his later words the faithful evolution of the concerns that moved us all in the FSM, what Mario left is nothing grander than the reflection of a man responding to his time with passionate concern, the scattered record of a consistent voice, a brilliant mind, and a remarkable spirit.

Public talks          Interviews          Writings


Public talks by Mario Savio

06/00/60     valedictory speech at graduation, Martin van Bueren H.S., Queens

12/02/64     from the steps of Sproul Hall, before the final sit-in

audio   partial transcript (aka "Mario's famous speech")

05/21/65     speech at Vietnam Day teach-in, printed in We Accuse

12/01/66     talk at rally (?) before/during the Second Strike at Berkeley

01/1-/67     Unitarian dialogue on crisis-issues

11/17/67     anti-war teach-in

04/01/68     anti-war rally on Sproul steps

04/2-/68     as Peace and Freedom Party candidate for State Senate

06/26/69      noon rally in People's Park

"Seize the Means of Leisure", Daily Californian, 7/1/69

10/15/69     talk about Vietnam war at U.C. San Diego (anno by A.P. 10/14)

10/02/84     noon rally, FSM's 20th anniversary

audio  transcript

10/02/84     (remarks during "Story of FSM" panel discussion)

11/12/84     talk at Columbia Univ., w/ Abbie Hoffman(60 min.)

11/13/84     talk at Columbia Univ., w/ Abbie Hoffman (135 min., whole)

spring85     talk at anti-apartheid rally (organized by Pedro Noguera)

11/14/85     address to New Palz Student Senate at SUNY/New Palz (60 min?)

06/10/88     graduation speech at son Nadav's Sidwell Friends School

"The Second Generation" (his edited text; given transcript (?) on Web)

1/89-6/90     talk about the Sixties in seminar at Modesto J.C.

04/20/93     address to Philosophy Club at Sonoma State

"Philosophy of a Young Activist"

12/02/94     noon rally, FSM's 30th anniversary

12/03/94     panel on current political situation ("Why I am not a Marxist")

transcript (also published in Threepenny Review]

02/24/95     address at ACLU dinner, Sebastapol

[anti-immigrant legislation, affirmative action defense]

transcript as published

03/29/95     talk at CCHRSJ rally/forum against Proposition 187

04/05/95     (talk?) covered by Bay TV

07/20/95     rally to protest Regents' anti-affirmative action decision (SF?)

08/17/95     affirmative action dialogue at CCSF (120 min.)

11/15/95     talk at History of Consciousness Colloquium, UC Santa Cruz

"Recollections of the Free Speech Movement"

09/00/96     remarks about Italian heritage (c. 7 min.)

at Dividing Line Conference, Sonoma State

10/00/96     talk on Sonoma State Fee Referendum (c. 10/15)

11/01/96     talk on Fee Hike panel at Sonoma State, with Dr. Arminana

01/28/9X     talk on Sonoma State quadrangle, reported by Sebastapol Times

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Interviews

12/03/64     by ?, phone interview with L.A. Herald-Examiner, (c. 400 words)

00/00/65     by Marston Schultz and Burton White (taped)

02/26/65     by Jack Fincher for published version in Life;  very evocative

05/11/65     by Max Heirich (taped; also 6/05; transcripts still exist?)

[extensive, from personal background to the recent conflict]

04/09/68      by Val Miner, Daily Californian [State Senate candidacy]

06/02-04/80     by Mia Ousley, Daily Californian [US military, FSM legacy; 3 parts]

06/07/82     by Mandalit del Barco, Daily Californian [re DC's FBI articles]

09/30/84     by Lynn Ludlow, S.F. Examiner

00/00/84     by Karlyn Barker, Washington Post  (edited from tape))

84/85          by Don Fass (1 hr.; probably re Nicaragua)

03/05/85     by Brett Eynon?? (120 to 180 min.)

01/22/86     (unknown) (60-90 min.; defective tape, recoverable)

11/22/94     by Kevin Zwick, Daily Californian(12/06?)

12/03/94     by Douglas Gilles, Consensus Designs (45 min.; with M. Rossman)

excerpt: personal meaning of free speech

12/03/94     by Steve Jacobson, with Roy Fadden and Jack Weinberg

00/00/95?   talk on Edgar Allen Poe panel at Sonoma State (Philosophy Club?)

02/25/95     KSRO talk show, right-wing host (1.5 hrs)

00/00/96     by Nathan Durkee (c. 12 years old) in "FSM: History Day"

08/13/96     by R. Schatz [phone interview, 2 hrs].

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Mario Savio's Writings

"An End to History", Humanity, Dec. 1964

"The Berkeley Student Rebellion of 1964", in The Free Speech Movement and
                    the Negro Revolution,
News & Letters, July 1965

Introduction to Hal Draper's Berkeley: The New Student Revolt (1965)

Speech at Vietnam Day, in We Accuse, 1965

""The 'New Radicals': An Exchange" in New Politics IV:4, Fall 1965

"The Uncertain Future of the University", Harper's, Oct. 1966

"Seize the Means of Leisure", Daily Californian, 7/1/69 (People's Park speech)

"Organizing the Movement" in North Coast Express, 1995 (ACLU dinner address)

"Why I am not a Marxist" in Threepenny Review #62, Summer 1995

edited by Wendy Lesser from reunion panel 12/94; with Greil Marcus's talk

Autobiographical notes, distributed for Sonoma ACLU dinner talk, 2/24/95

California at a Crossroads: Social Strife or Social Unity (with Nadav Savio)

pamphlet by Campus Coalitions for Human Rights and Social Justice, 5/95

"Diversity is a Responsibility", Daily Californian Opinion 7/25/95
                  (undelivered speech for Regents' meeting)

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URL: http://www.fsm-a.org/stacks/covers/savio_cvr.html.html
  This page last changed 20 March, 2002

 

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