Cesar Hernandez, the student body president at USF, completed speaking for 24 hours straight Wednesday morning, and has now been succeeded by other students as they attempt to break the record for the longest speech in history – which Hernandez says is 78 hours, and thus would run into early Friday evening.
Much of his speech consisted of him reading from Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States – and it’s all part of drawing attention to Governor Rick Scott’s plans to cut the state university system budget, as well as attempts in the Legislature to craft anti-illegal immigration bill.
Five hours after he completed his speaking stint, Hernandez said he spoke straight through without taking any bathroom breaks, and said he was mostly sustained by drinking smoothies. As a pre-med Biology student, he said he’s put his body through similar trauma in the past, and emphasized that at the age of 24, he could handle it.
On Tuesday night at approximately 7 p.m., CL visited Hernandez as he was reading Howard Zinn, accompanied by a handful of friends and strangers, somewhat mesmerized about his experiment.
This article appears in Apr 21-27, 2011.
