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June 18, 2013 by tomdalzell

Free Speech 2.0

fsm_v_sm

We are approaching the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement.  We were the epicenter. Ground Zero.  The heart of the storm.  You probably know the basics.  If not, read this essay or browse through this website  And by all means no matter how much you know, spend a minute and listen to Mario Savio’s Most Famous Words.  Oh my.

images

Berkeley_64csp_savio-rally

dlg132

Free Speech Tables

Joan Baez

Joan Baez

Phil Ochs

Phil Ochs

Heading for the microphone at the Greek Theater

Heading for the microphone at the Greek Theater

I have one of the best collections of buttons from the United Farm Workers of the 1960s and 1970s.   I have a special place in my heart for buttons.  Like this one:

images

Digression: Speaking of free speech, we can’t not mention Lenny Bruce.  He blazed new trails in language, to be sure, and paid a price for his blazing.  His last live concert album was recorded at the Berkeley Community Theater in December 1965, less than a year before he died.

Berkeley Concert

Today, we honor Mario Savio with a plaque.

Steps

We honor the movement with a cafe at the entrance to Moffitt Library:

Cafe

And in neon:

Neon

And in logos and signs:

BerkeleyCommunityMedia.Logosm

And in bookstore windows:

Bookstore

We honor the movement, but do we live it?  Do we practice it?  Most importantly for my limited purpose, how do we manifest it in material culture?

Well, let’s start with books.  A big part of free speech.   In the years immediately after the Free Speech Movement, we had a portable Movement Library, photographed here by R. Abzug:

Screen shot 2013-04-10 at 7.24.46 AM

Berkeley Barb

Berkeley Barb

Cool!  We still do sort of the same thing only different.  We build houses on poles and create micro lending libraries.  Take a book, leave a book.  Most, but not all, are established through the auspices of Little Free Library, an organization that hopes to make as many micro libraries as Andrew Carnegie made big granite town libraries.

Vinalhaven, Maine

Vinalhaven, Maine

Berkeley has its share of little free libraries:

1733 Sacramento

1733 Sacramento

 

1311 Walnut

1311 Walnut

900 Santa Barbara

900 Santa Barbara

IMG_7221

752 Grizzly Peak

752 Grizzly Peak

762

762 Hildale

2805 Acton

2805 Acton

1233 Derby

1233 Derby

2300 Eunice

2300 Eunice

 

"Quirky Berkeley"

And one specializing in children’s books, the most nicely appointed one in Berkeley to be sure:

1035 Shattuck

1035 Shattuck

And now two ends of the spectrum.  First, the corporate-sponsored one:

2095 Rose

2095 Rose

And then the rogue ones, same idea, no official sponsorship by the Little Free Library group:

1314 Harmon

1314 Harmon

1411 Ada

1411 Ada

"Quirky Berkeley"

While on the subject of giving things away, would you permit a slight digression, to a free clothes bin, named for animal rights activist and City Council member Donna Spring?

1709 Allston

1709 Allston

1709 Allston

1709 Allston

The idea of a free box is embedded in our culture.

Quirky Berkeley

Here it is celebrated in a mural facing south in the vacant lot on the northeast corner of Haste and Telegraph, the Berkeley Inn site.

Well, books, which is where we were before my digression, are a start.   How about expressing your thoughts?  Do we dare to speak our minds? We have several whimsical options, such as these two wish trees

1601 Jaynes

1601 Jaynes

1874 Capistrano

1874 Capistrano

Or this wish post at the Uplands and Encina:

The Uplands and Encina 1 The Uplands and Encina 2

Or this tree where in November, 2013, passersby were asked to describe what they were thankful to see leaving this season:

Rose between Shattuck and Walnut

Rose between Shattuck and Walnut

Less whimsically, we invite strangers to take and read our anarchist literature:

2231 Ashby

2231 Ashby

And we post broadsides on our fences and utility poles.

1605 Allison

1605 Allison

1879 San Juan

1879 San Juan

969 Miiller (Alfie 2003-2012)

969 Miiller (Alfie 2003-2012)

1005 Miller

1005 Miller

1034 Pardee

1034 Pardee

2200 MicKinley

2200 MicKinley

2200 McKinley

2200 McKinley

1321 Peralta

1321 Peralta

And, most commonly, we invite comment on community bulletin boards, hold-overs from a more politically active decade.  A flashback, to the Northside Bookstore on Euclid, to get into the spirit of the bulletin board:

Northside Books

And then these ironic photos from People’s Park in May 1969:

Bulletin Board

Bulletin Board PP 2

Bulletin Board Peoples Park

Young men in the National Guard reading the bulletin board in the park that they had seized at great human and monetary cost.

And now to the present-day, the community bulletin boards of Berkeley:

609 Haste

609 Haste

1340 Arch

1340 Arch

1400 block Scenic

1400 block Scenic

Halcyon Common

Halcyon Common

1603 Bonita

1603 Bonita

Sacramento at Delaware

Sacramento at Delaware

1612 Delaware

1612 Delaware

1616 Belvedere

1616 Belvedere

1305 Hopkins Eco House

1305 Hopkins
Eco House

1300 block Ashby

1300 block Ashby

2185 Acton

2185 Acton

132 Bonita

132 Bonita

2120 Bonar

2120 Bonar

A variation on the theme – blackboard instead of bulletin board:

1018 Spruce

1018 Spruce

2215 Grant

2215 Grant

2231 Ashby

2231 Ashby

3130 Shattuck

3130 Shattuck

1900 block Ashby Ashby Community Garden

1900 block Ashby
Ashby Community Garden

The Alameda south of Solano

The Alameda south of Solano

The Alameda south of Solano

The Alameda south of Solano

2830 Sacramento

2830 Sacramento

A sad fact emerges from these photos.  We don’t have a lot of say.  Many boards are empty, near empty, and/or in a state of disrepair.  So it goes, I guess, but let’s end with a show of strength, bulletin boards in People’s Park, where everybody gets a blister…

IMG_5738 IMG_5759IMG_5757

We have seen this story so many times, our hope and then our fate.

Hope

Unknown

Our hope here may have exceeded our fate.  Or maybe not.  With People’s Park, yes, I see the argument.  But speech?  I don’t think so.  It may be simply a question of technology.  The bulletin board is perhaps simply a means of communicating that is no longer relevant.  I think that’s right.  But we have the vestigal boards, shards of material culture.

occupy-berkeley-1

My friend wasn’t in Berkeley for the FSM in 1964, but he now claims that later in the 1960s he “rapped” (his word) with Mario Savio and Jack Weinberg and Jackie Goldberg.  He says he has some photos to prove it.

My Friend With Savio

What was it like?  It was like these photos he said –

IMG_3677

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here you will find photos of the oddball, whimsical, eccentric, and the near-rhyme quirky material culture of Berkeley.
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