At Berkeley in the 60s: The Education of an Activist, 1961-1965 [Hardcover]

Jo Freeman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2003

This book is a history and memoir of Berkeley in the early Sixties. The story is told by an undergraduate but put into historical and political context by a scholar. Both voices are those of the author - 35 years apart. It draws heavily on documents created at the time-letters, reports, interviews, memos, newspaper stories, FBI files-but is fleshed out with retrospective analysis. As events unfold, the campus conflicts of the Sixties take on a completely different cast.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Only 16 at the time, Freeman entered Berkeley in 1961, when the nascent social and political activism of the '60s was percolating. In prose that is by turns pedantic and moving, Freeman revisits her journey through those swirling, exciting and disillusioning times. Using her own diaries and letters as well as FBI files and other documentary sources, Freeman switches back and forth between her recollections and her more measured observations as a scholar reflecting on these times. Wide-eyed at 16, Freeman read all she could find on the various movements on campus and plunged into her studies to gain a broader understanding of the world around her. Witnessing segregation in the South while active in the Civil Rights movement, she became disillusioned with Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy for claiming that he had desegregated all Southern bus stations. Freeman moved on to a leadership role in the free speech movement, which sponsored Malcolm X as well as Ralph Forbes, a leader of the American Nazi Party, to speak on campus. Committed as she was to her causes, Freeman reveals her very real fear of being arrested for the first time. She honestly admits that the free speech movement, like many other '60s movements, was run mostly by men, and that the emerging women's liberation movement had little effect on gender equality. Breezy and anecdotal, on one hand, and scholarly and dry, on the other, Freeman's account provides yet another glimpse of one ordinary person's experience in the extraordinary '60s working to make a better world. 12 b&w photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

". . .brings enormous research to bear on [Freeman's] heady college days. [The] book is less memoir than political history. . . ." -- New York Times, February 1, 2004

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (October 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 025334283X
• ISBN-13: 978-0253342836
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,877,774 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough, fair and accurate, February 26, 2004

By 

Bibliomane "Bibliomane" (Mystic, CT USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: At Berkeley in the Sixties: The Making of an Activist (Paperback)

It is the most through and, to my mind,
>most fair-minded treatment of those events and their
>meaning. I speak as a graduate student in English at Berkeley from
>1961 to 1968 (with one year away teaching in the
>South) and I received my degree to become a professor at
>Stanford. The scholarship and intrepid
>note-keeping that Ms. Freeman kept over the years have made those times in the
>'sixties come vividly alive to me. It is not true that if you can remember the 'sixties, you were not there. She was there, recalls it all, and is both fair and accurate.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The 1964 Berkeley Student Revolt, February 21, 2004

By 

Bob Simpson "Bob Simpson" (Oak Park, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: At Berkeley in the Sixties: The Making of an Activist (Paperback)

As an alienated high school student trapped in a segregated conservative Washington DC suburb, I viewed the 1964 Berkeley student revolt from across 3000 miles of physical distance and media distortion. But I knew one thing. I wanted to be in Berkeley.

Jo Freeman was at Berkeley in 1964 and became one of the leaders of the Free Speech Movement which led the Berkeley uprising and help launch the general student revolt of that period. Now in 2004, she tells the inside story of what happened. Based on her own personal experience, extensive interviews and exhaustive archival research, her book not only details what happened, but also places it in the context of the Cold War and the civil rights movement.

The Berkeley student revolt began when the school administration tried to limit student political and social activism. Berkeley students had grown up with the threat of nuclear destruction and the promise of the civil rights movement. There were already veteran peace and civil rights activists on campus. Many of these had been raised by parents who had participated in the struggles the 1930's and 1940's. These students were not about to give in easily. The main weapon of their revolution was the portable table for displaying literature and accepting donations. Their main tactics were the classic ones from the labor struggles of the 1930's: the picket-line, the strike and the sit-down.

Freeman first came to Berkeley in 1961 at age 16, after having grown up in the culturally confining suburbs of LA's San Fernando Valley. Bright and ambitious, but painfully shy and naive, she flowered both politically and personally at Berkeley. The 1960's was a period of rapid personal as well as social transformation and her book is an excellent introduction to what that actually felt like. Jo Freeman has a fine sense of irony and casts her barbed wit with grace and style-- as often at herself as at others.

Her book is actually three books skillfully combined into one. As a historian, she is able to place the Berkeley revolt into historical context. As a political scientist, she treats student politics as serious politics, without the snide condescension that it often receives. As a writer she weaves in her own coming-of-age story. One of my favorite chapters was her account of a 1964 hitchhiking trip across America. For anyone who grew up with the "On the Road" Kerouac legends, it's a wonderful feminist reality check.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants more than a superficial understanding of the 1960's. But it is more than just an entertaining book about an interesting period. It's also a excellent resource for those involved in student politics today.

Much has changed since the early 60's, but the book's exploration of the debates over tactics and strategy, the point-counterpoint between students and administration, the complexity of keeping a diverse and fractious coalition together and the challenges of working with strong but humanly flawed personalities has much to teach student activists today.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a multifaceted memoir of the 1960s, June 7, 2004

By 

lucas a powe (austin, texas United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: At Berkeley in the Sixties: The Making of an Activist (Paperback)

Jo Freeman has authored a multifaceted memoir of her years as an undergraduate campus activist at Berkeley. She entered Cal in the fall of 1961 as a 16 year-old from the San Fernando Valley and graduated in the spring of 1965 after the Free Speech Movement had shaken the Berkeley Administration and energized not only activists but seemingly an entire campus. It is part the story of a teenager growing up quickly, making dumb mistakes and surmounting them. It is part a story of civil rights activism, including the truly difficult decision of whether civil disobedience is justifiable when the conduct one is challenging is not illegal. (Freeman was arrested and tried three times, being convicted twice, and causing a split with her mother.) More importantly this is an insider's acccount of the Free Speech Movement, its politics and personalities. Freeman also strives to take account of the FSM's opponents: the Berkeley Administration, the Regents, the press, and, of course, politicians. It is no easy task to weave so many stories together in a coherent whole, and Freeman has done a fine job of bringing her knowledge as an adult to bear on her actions forty years ago. This is a terrific look at the optimism of the 1960s before Vietnam, summer riots, and drugs intervened to scar the decade.