Free Speech at Sproul Hall UC Berkeley

I can imagine what the students there are discussing for the issue is at the hearts and minds of the protesters and the issue at hand is the number of unarmed people of color who were shot by police in this country of America and died.  In 1776  Patrick Henry made a famous speech and in part one famous line said give me liberty or give me death.  Mario Salvio was well known at this place of Sproul Hall of the campus of UC Berkeley; I was not.  I did have one little fling when I was brought to task when I became emotional and blurted out an expression of disagreement when one speaker was speaking of the Christian religion on campus and how it should guide our lives but I knew the University of Berkeley was not church it was not built there for the purpose of worship of a  religious god but there I was involved in a debate with this fiery brimstone of a religious speech making orator but I knew I was there too for a purpose and so I found myself in a debate I shall remember to this day  more than forty years ago.  At that time briefly knew the dean of women Emily Reed who was impressed by my encounter but cautioned me to not participate as the authorities could clearly see the free speech movement as a disruption in student activities.   In high school I was encouraged by my teacher Mr. Lettich or rather called upon to debate an issue with another student the free speech movement which was happening at Cal and so I put my best forward and gave the green light for those who were part of the free speech movement.  My opposition debater  disagreed with me but fellow classmate Donald Sutherland who heard me speak gave me thumbs up for what I had said.  I came to know Mario Salvio as a kind of hero to me a leader of the student union in those days.  He's gone now died in his fifties of a heart failure but I admired him for what he did and what he stood for.  For the first time in many decades I read his famous speech and the nostalgia brings clear sentiment to my eyes.  I just read his speech googled it and remembered it to this day so fondly.  But I can also sympathize with journalist and talk show host Ronn Owens that there are disruptions in our normal flow of traffic with freeways being threatened.   We are on alert.  Ronn Owens and I had talked on various issues of the day throughout the many decades and it was the celebrities that he hosted which I joined in with but mainly to ask a few questions or make comments  thoroughly to my delight.