The District Goes Radical in the 1960s
Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement (b)
During some of the time Savio was a student at UC Berkeley, he resided in the District at 2106 McGee Ave. very close to St. Joseph's church. Having been an altar boy from a devout Catholic family in Queens, it is not a surprise that he took up contact with the pastor at the church.
Father Harry Morrison states in his Parish History: "...as the University of California was embroiled in a controversy of far-reaching implications, the founder and spearhead of the FSM, Mario Savio, ... was engaged in a cordial relationship with the kindly old pastor of St. Joseph's [Patrick Galvan]. These regular, friendly conversations... must have been far removed in spirit and tone from the noisy demonstrations in Sproul Plaza and serve to highlight the ironic, human, and often friendly coexistence of the 'two Berkeleys' during these troubled years."
Savio quit the FSM in 1965, and almost two decades later received a master's degree in Physics. In 1990 he moved to Sonoma County, where he taught mathematics, philosophy and logic at Sonoma State University. He died in 1996.