Born December 8, 1942
New York City
Died November 6, 1996
Sebastopol, California

Free speech activist, civil rights activist, and educator

From the 1960s through the 1990s Mario Savio fought for political freedoms, the rights of minority groups and poor people, and peace. As the eloquent leader of the 1964 Free Speech Movement at the University of California-Berkeley, Savio challenged university regulations forbidding student political groups from spreading their messages on campus. He rallied hundreds of students to occupy a campus building and subject themselves to arrest. The Free Speech Movement is credited with having ushered in an era of antiwar protest and countercultural rebellion at colleges and universities around the United States.

Grows up in New York City

Savio was born on December 8, 1942, in Queens, New York, and grew up in a working-class neighborhood. His father, a native of Sicily, was a sheet-metal worker. Savio was a Catholic altar boy...