NO.55
SPRING
2000
BENE LEGERE
NEWSLETTER
OF THE
LIBRARY ASSOCIATES
The Library Associates
Join more than 6,000 other friends, book lovers, alumni, and faculty who recognize that the influence of a great research library reaches beyond the university it serves to the many communities of which it is a part.
Library Associates receive complimentary copies of the quarterly newsletter Bene Legere, as well as invitations to special occasions at the Library. For more information on the Library Associates program, please write or telephone: The Library Development Office, Room 188 Doe Library, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; telephone (510) 642-9377. Or, check our website.
The Free Speech Movement Cafe
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Lynne Hollander Savio and Steve M. Silberstein, '64, M.L.S. '77, chat at the opening of the Free Speech Movement Cafe. |
On February 3, 2000, the UC Berkeley community came together with alumni of the Free Speech Movement (FSM) to celebrate the opening of the Free Speech Movement Cafe at the Moffitt Undergraduate Library. The highlighted speaker, FSM activist Bettina Aptheker, '67 (now a professor at UC Santa Cruz), was joined by Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl; University Librarian Gerald R. Lowell; and Lynne Hollander Savio, widow of Mario Savio, a leader of the movement.
The Cafe was made possible by a gift from Steve M. Silberstein, '64, M.L.S. '77, which also includes funds to establish the Mario Savio/Free Speech Movement Endowment for library materials and a digitized archive focusing on the Free Speech Movement. With this gift, Silberstein hopes that Cal undergraduates will be inspired to learn about the history of the movement that took place in late 1964 and stands as a clarion call for the era. "We owe no small debt to Mario Savio and the individuals who made up the Free Speech Movement," said Silberstein. "Despite great personal and family sacrifice, they spoke up for the ideals upon which our society is based and in which we all believe."
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At the opening of the Free Speech Movement Cafe, Jack Weinberg stood in front of a photo of the events, including an enlarged picture of himself in a police car. |
In 1998, when accepting the gift from Silberstein, Chancellor Berdahl said: "Inherent in Berkeley's excellence in the postwar era has been the free and open expression of ideas by all members of the university community, an assumption that many of us may take for granted. No one would disagree that the Free Speech Movement had a significant role in placing the American university center-stage in the free flow of political ideas, no matter how controversial."
In true Berkeley fashion, the opening celebration was temporarily disrupted by student demonstrators in gas masks who support the availability of organic foods in campus eating establishments.
Located to the left of the Moffitt Undergraduate Library entrance, the Cafe's hours are the same as those of Moffitt Library. The menu offers cafe fare, including soups, salads, sandwiches, baked goods, and beverages.