Students for a Democratic Society
On October 1, 1964, the University of California, Berkeley exploded into the free speech movement. Led by a Friends of SNCC student activist named Mario Savio, more than three thousand students surrounded a police car where a student, arrested for setting up a card table against a ban by the university, was being taken away. The sit-down stopped the police car from moving for 36 hours. The demonstrations, meetings and strikes all but shut the university down. Hundreds of students were arrested. SDS leaders watched and learned from this lesson.