Savio's part in the protest on the Berkeley campus started on October 1, 1964, when former graduate student Jack Weinberg was manning a table for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). He was arrested when he refused to provide identification. The University police had just put him into a police car when someone from the surrounding crowd yelled, "We can all see better if we sit down." Soon those in front of and behind the police car starting sitting as the call "sit down" echoed through the crowd, trapping the car in the plaza. Savio, along with others during the 32-hour sit-in, took off his shoes and climbed on top of the car and spoke with words that roused the crowd into a frenzy.