The State - News from Oct. 2, 1985

Former free speech activist Mario Savio observed the state’s first official “Free Speech Day” in Berkeley by saluting University of California students for their “brilliant renewal” of free speech. Berkeley students protested South African apartheid in a series of sit-ins and rallies urging divestment last spring. A leader of the free speech movement at Berkeley in 1964, Savio also criticized Reagan Administration officials involved with prosecuting student protesters in the ‘60s. “The anti-free speech party of 1964 now is in the White House,” Savio told a rally of about 700 people at Sproul Plaza. State lawmakers recently established Oct. 1 as “Free Speech Day.”