"Bettina Aptheker was a 20-year-old sophomore at UC Berkeley when she climbed on top of a police car, barefoot so she wouldn't damage it, and helped start the Free Speech Movement. Power concedes nothing without a demand, she told a crowd gathered in Sproul Plaza on that October Thursday in 1964, quoting abolitionist Frederick Douglass. She was blinded by the lights of the television cameras, but the students roared back approval, and their energy just sort of went through my whole body, she told me."
"Aptheker and other students had planned a peaceful protest, only to have police roll up and arrest a graduate student named Jack Weinberg, a lanky guy with floppy hair and a mustache who had spent the summer working for the civil rights movement. Well-versed in those non-violent methods that were finally winning a bit of equality for Black Americans, hundreds of students sat down around the cruiser, remaining there more than 30 hours"
Bettina Aptheker, a 20-year-old UC Berkeley sophomore, climbed onto a police car barefoot and quoted Frederick Douglass to rally students during 1964 protests. Administrators had recently imposed rules restricting political speech on campus. Students planned a peaceful protest that escalated when police arrested graduate student Jack Weinberg, a civil-rights worker. Hundreds of students sat around the police cruiser for more than 30 hours while hecklers attacked and police gathered at the edges. Protesters employed nonviolent tactics and negotiated the restoration of free speech on campus. The movement arose from resistance to McCarthy-era repression and showcased youth-driven courage and passion.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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