EVERYTHING WHAT YOU NEEDTO DREAM...
Berkeley
KNOWLEDGE OF Berkeley
In the beginning, there were cows.
Where the University of California campus and the City of Berkeley now stand, the cattle of the Peralta Rancho land grant roamed, more or less unobstructed, until 1873. That was the year that the first 191 students of the newly minted University of California moved from temporary quarters in Oakland into the campus' two not-quite-finished buildings.
U. C. Berkeley grew and flourished, accompanied by the kind of growing pains particular to a university—enterprising students knocking over trolley cars to create an excuse for missing lectures, and, in 1879, the suspension of the entire sophomore class over their "obscene parody" of the Junior Class Day program. The city of Berkeley grew with the campus; a downtown appeared and prospered. The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906, which left Berkeley unscathed, attracted thousands of stability-seeking immigrants from across the Bay. Residential neighborhoods spread out from the campus. University Presidents Benjamin Ide Wheeler and Robert Gordon Sproul presided over the expansion of the university to its present size, securing its prestigious faculty and international reputation.
The university and the surrounding community grappled throughout the post-WWII years with the usual litany of student discontent, from a housing crisis to complaints about the "dehumanization of education." It was without a doubt the Free Speech Movement, however, that thrust Berkeley into the national consciousness of the tumultuous 1960s.
In the autumn and winter of 1964, a new and increasingly political student activism ran head-on into University policy—and university administrators—from an earlier era. Inspired by the struggles of southern civil rights workers, organizations like SNCC (The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) and CORE (The Congress on Racial Equality) began to recruit students on campus. Attempts to enforce University restrictions on political organization on campus led to tense stand-offs and sit-ins. At a December 2, 1964 demonstration, Free Speech Movement leader Mario Savio stood on the steps of Sproul Hall (now called The Mario Savio Steps) and gave voice to the passion of a generation:
"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 tacitly 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 machines will be prevented from working at all."
The unrest, sit-ins and demonstrations continued for the rest of the year and into the next two years with Eldridge Cleaver sit-ins and "Free Huey" demonstrations.
The Free Speech Movement was able to wring some concessions for its cause out of the U.C. administration, but the times they were a-changin'. By 1969, with five years of Vietnam and domestic unrest behind them, both student activists and administration figures were of a more militant disposition. For many, the atmosphere in which People's Park became the flashpoint for a political and cultural conflict is synonymous with the Berkeley of the late 1960s and 70s.
Where the University of California campus and the City of Berkeley now stand, the cattle of the Peralta Rancho land grant roamed, more or less unobstructed, until 1873. That was the year that the first 191 students of the newly minted University of California moved from temporary quarters in Oakland into the campus' two not-quite-finished buildings.
U. C. Berkeley grew and flourished, accompanied by the kind of growing pains particular to a university—enterprising students knocking over trolley cars to create an excuse for missing lectures, and, in 1879, the suspension of the entire sophomore class over their "obscene parody" of the Junior Class Day program. The city of Berkeley grew with the campus; a downtown appeared and prospered. The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906, which left Berkeley unscathed, attracted thousands of stability-seeking immigrants from across the Bay. Residential neighborhoods spread out from the campus. University Presidents Benjamin Ide Wheeler and Robert Gordon Sproul presided over the expansion of the university to its present size, securing its prestigious faculty and international reputation.
The university and the surrounding community grappled throughout the post-WWII years with the usual litany of student discontent, from a housing crisis to complaints about the "dehumanization of education." It was without a doubt the Free Speech Movement, however, that thrust Berkeley into the national consciousness of the tumultuous 1960s.
In the autumn and winter of 1964, a new and increasingly political student activism ran head-on into University policy—and university administrators—from an earlier era. Inspired by the struggles of southern civil rights workers, organizations like SNCC (The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) and CORE (The Congress on Racial Equality) began to recruit students on campus. Attempts to enforce University restrictions on political organization on campus led to tense stand-offs and sit-ins. At a December 2, 1964 demonstration, Free Speech Movement leader Mario Savio stood on the steps of Sproul Hall (now called The Mario Savio Steps) and gave voice to the passion of a generation:
"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 tacitly 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 machines will be prevented from working at all."
The unrest, sit-ins and demonstrations continued for the rest of the year and into the next two years with Eldridge Cleaver sit-ins and "Free Huey" demonstrations.
The Free Speech Movement was able to wring some concessions for its cause out of the U.C. administration, but the times they were a-changin'. By 1969, with five years of Vietnam and domestic unrest behind them, both student activists and administration figures were of a more militant disposition. For many, the atmosphere in which People's Park became the flashpoint for a political and cultural conflict is synonymous with the Berkeley of the late 1960s and 70s.
Chapi