Sentencing of the Berkeley free speech movement defendants

Speeches and interviews given by Free Speech Movement defendants as they are sentenced, enter, or are released from the Santa Rita detention center for their activities three years prior. Narrator Elsa Knight Thompson explains how on June 12, 1967 the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the Free Speech Movement case, she reads the appeal brief, and speaks of the details of the sentencing of the participants of the Sit-In at Sproul Hall in December 1964. On June 21, 1967 they began serving their sentences for trespassing and refusal to disperse during the sit-in. In 1967 a rally was held to honor those now being sentenced and serving. At the rally, Anita Levine speaks about her experience at Santa Rita Jail. She describes her day-to-day life in jail. English Professor Thomas Parkinson reads from an FSM student's letter from Santa Rita. Roberta Alexander, a FSM defendant and a student, speaks about her recent experience in Spain and being expelled from the country and forced to serve this sentence. Several other speakers address the crowd about the police brutality and their thoughts on FSM, including Hal Draper, Chairman of the Independent Socialist Club and editor of the journal New Politics, John Searle, Professor of Philosophy, FSM leader Bettina Aptheker, who served her sentence while 7 months pregnant, and Mario Savio is interviewed. Produced by the News and Public Affairs Department at KPFA.