Heading: (Free Speech Movement)
Author:
Title: Fundraising leaflet for the Free Speech Defense Fund
Place Published: Berkeley, California
Publisher:
Date Published: 1965
Description:

1pg. With photograph of police officers on campus and the Campanile in the distance. 8½x11" 

 

The Berkeley “Free Speech Movement” was the start of a decade of unrest on college campuses across the nation, fueled by opposition to the Vietnam War and in support of racial equality.  The fundraising effort was on the behalf of students arrested during a sit-in at the University of California Berkeley. With printed letter signed in facsimile by John Lewis and Robert Vogel, demonstrating an important link between the Beats and the Civil Rights movement (John Lewis, Bayard Rustin, Phillip Randolph, etc.). 

“Free Speech Isn’t Free…Eight hundred students put their bodies on the line in defense of our Constitutional rights. Now they face expensive, demoralizing trials and, if convicted, fines and jail sentences. We must not let them stand alone.” Offering records and posters for sale and soliciting contributions to finance “a staggering amount of time and legal talent.”

During the night of December 4, 1964, following mass demonstrations by students  protesting the University ban on campus political activity, police cordoned off the  occupied Sproul Hall, administration building of the University of California Berkeley.  They began arresting some 800 students who were conducting an all-night sit-in. After being transported to jail, they were released. A month later, the University brought charges against the demonstrators. 155 of the defendants finally came to trial in April 1965. The trial dragged on for three months of testimony by students, police and University officials until in July, the students were found guilty; some were sentenced to three months in jail. This leaflet probably appeared in the early stages of the lengthy legal proceedings.

Folds and moderate wear; good.