Berkeley riots

The Berkeley protests were a series of events at the University of California, Berkeley, and Berkeley, California, in the 1960s. Many of these protests were a small part of the larger Free Speech Movement, which had national implications and constituted the onset of the counterculture era. These protests were headed under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Jack Weinberg, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and others.

The events at Berkeley can be generally defined by three single yet interrelated social topics: the Civil Rights Movement, the Free Speech Movement, and the Vietnam war protests in Berkeley, California.

The Berkeley protests were not the first demonstrations to be held in and around the University of California Campus. Since before World War II, students had demonstrated at the university. In the 1930s, the students at Berkeley led massive demonstrations protesting the United States ending its disarmament policy and the approaching war. Throughout the course of World War II, these demonstrations continued with the addition of strikes against fascism; however, they were largely symbolic in form. This can be inferred as the student groups leading these demonstrations did not necessarily seek, nor did they expect their demonstrations to result in change. Nevertheless, this passive approach to demonstration changed in the 1950s at the height of the McCarthy era. From 1949 to 1950, students and teaching assistants at UC Berkeley rallied against the anti-communist loyalty oath that professors were forced to take at the university. Up until the Berkeley riots, these demonstrations were the largest student protests witnessed in the United States. Considering the relatively high presence of demonstrations on the Berkeley campus in its history, and the fact that it had already been the site of the largest student demonstration in the United States, it provided a perfect site to nurture the Berkeley riots.

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