1960s: UC Berkeley Trivia Quiz

Answer: Telegraph Avenue

Telegraph Avenue during the 1960 was a compact four block area full of students, compatible shops with a proximity to Oakland and the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. This was a time when one could run across Joan Baez shopping or see Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. It was a center point of the student movement and the emerging core of counter culture.

Answer: Mario Savio

Savio gave his legendary September, 1964 speech on the steps of Sproul Hall, just before the students were going to enter to begin a famous sit-in. One memorable statement from his talk is "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 passively 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." Savio died young of a heart attack.

In 1997, the steps from which he gave his famous speech were renamed Mario Savio Steps in his memory.

Answer: 1964

The center point of the FSM movement occurred in December 1964. It began as a demand for the right to free speech, specifically to be able to pass out leaflets and documents in Sproul Plaza. About 800 people were arrested in the Sproul Plaza sit-in. By January 1965, the new chancellor agree to allow more open discussion time and a right to use tables.
Later, in 1966, Ronald Reagan was elected Governor of California, promising to "clean up the mess in Berkeley."
The Free Speech Movement turned its focus in the later 1960's to protests against the Vietnam War.

Answer: "We Shall Overcome"

The lyrics of this song come from gospel music. They were were written by the Reverend Charles Tindley and published in 1947. Pete Seeger made important changes to the song: he changed it from "We will overcome" to "We shall overcome," and he added "We'll walk hand in hand" and "The whole wide world around." Joan Baez sang this song to a group of 300,000 at the March on Washington in August 1963.
The chorus of the song is stimulating and moving: "Oh, deep in my heart/I do believe/We shall overcome some day."

Answer: The Free Speech Movement

People estimate there were approximately 10,000 students surrounding the police car at one of the major days of this movement. In Berkeley, California now, there is The FSM Cafe, a site on line which contains visual records of the major activities in 1964-1965 and its leaders. Some of the other leaders were Mario Savio, Brian Turner, Bettina Apthecker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, Mike Rossman, and others.

A central feature of the FSM was its collective approach toward leadership and a shared impromptu attitude toward organization.

Answer: Clark Kerr

Clark Kerr was a Quaker and a Democrat, a professor of economics and industrial relations. Clark Kerr's leadership was uneven. For instance, he signed the anti-communist loyalty oath, but, at the same time, he took a strong stand against firing those who refused to sign. He barred Malcolm X from appearing on campus, but he allowed Billy Graham. Students would characterize him as repressive, while conservative regents criticized his leniency toward students. Finally, Ronald Reagan was elected Governor of California in part because of Kerr's alleged leniency. Soon after Reagan's election, Kerr was fired from the Presidency. He left exultantly, in his words, "fired with enthusiasm."

Kerr wrote a second memoir, "The Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949-1967 Volume Two: Political Turmoil." This book looks at what he came to think of as his problems dealing with the powerful student movement.

Answer: SLATE

UC Berkeley saw a significant increase in the numbers of student enrollment and of the focus of the enrolling students--there were more students entering from the Humanities and the Social Sciences.

In 1957, SLATE began to run candidates for student elections. It began as a group of students opposed to nuclear testing, capital punishment, Cold War antagonisms. As time passed, SLATE became more active in protests against the hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and as participants in the Civil Rights Demonstrations both in the Bay Area and in the South.

SLATE in the 1960's was a magnet for people coming to Berkeley throughout the country. Its focus was in the HUAC demonstrations and the Civil Rights movement. Its influence diminished during the anti-Vietnam protests.

Answer: shooting a police officer

,There was a rally in Oakland in 1968 in support of Huey Newton in which
SNCC members Stokley Carmichael, H. Rap Brown and James Forman stood together in defense of the work that Newton did in support of the community. Huey P. Newton was co-founder and leader of The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Newton had not known how to read but, early on, forced himself to read Plato's Republic five times. Newton's tenure in the Black Panthers was a mix of projects directed to the community and collective activities which sometimes ended in violence.
Newton became Minister of Defense in the Black Panther Party. In 1968, Newton was convicted of killing Officer Frey. There are many different accounts of Officer Frey's death. Finally, in 1989, after a very adventurous life, Newton was shot and killed by a 24 year-old member of the Black Guerrilla Family. Newton's last words were "You can kill my body, but you can't kill my soul. My soul will live forever!" At that point, Robinson, his killer, shot Newton three times in the face.
The history of the Black Panther Party is full of contradictions and drama.

Answer: Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey is the author of the celebrated novels, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Sometimes A Great Notion."

One famous trip of the Merry Pranksters took place in 1964 in a psychedelic decorated school bus named "Further." Tom Wolfe wrote of their journey in his book, "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."

Answer: People's Park

In May 1969, Governor Reagan called in 2,000 National Guard troops. The students were unwavering in their support for People's Park. In 1969, crowds in defense of People's Park had grown to some 6,000 people. Reagan's Chief of Staff Meese allowed the officers to use shotguns loaded with "00" buckshot of lead pellets that are both larger, and more lethal, than bird shot which previously had been used for crowd control. One bystander, James Rector was killed in these demonstrations.

At one point, the streets of Berkeley were lined with barbed wire.

The air of Berkeley was intermittently filled with tear gas. This protest became a collective movement in the city, with people coming out in support of the protests in large quantities. About a year after these demonstrations, Ronald Reagan is said to have said, "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with. No more appeasement." It has been over the years the site of many clashes after the famous days back in 1969. Today it is a free, if as some say, a bit forlorn public park which serves many of the homeless who receive meals from the group, East Bay Food Not Bombs.