Mark Rudd - SDS Columbia Chapter Chairman and one of the leaders of the Strike

In the spring of 1968 students at Columbia University participated in a controversial series of demonstrations designed to disrupt the ongoings at the university. The Columbia Revolt was original and unique at this point in history. It was the most bold and disruptive protest up until that time. It was the first at an

The students at Columbia thought that they could make the university work as a political instrument. The goal was not to remove Columbia University from American policies and make the university an open forum for intellectual ideas. The goal was actually to use the university as a weapon to attack policies of the government (May 1). It wasn’t so much the school’s issues that the students wanted to address, it was the country’s issues. The students used the prestigious institution of Columbia University as a platform to speak to the whole country.

The issues at hand included the plan to build a gymnasium in a park between the campus on Morningside Heights and Harlem (Isserman 229). The gym would exploit the black construction workers and black employees who would facilitate its construction and maintenance. Harlem residents, however, would have no access to it. What was at the heart of this issue was the fact that students believed that the university was exploiting the poor black neighborhoods of Harlem that surrounded the campus (May 1). Students thought of Columbia University as slumlords. Columbia University was blamed for acquiring the land it needed it needed for its own institutional purposes and ignoring the needs of the surrounding communities (Crisis 39). Also, the school was blamed for ruthlessly trying to drive out those who were thought to be lower class citizens away from the area, fearing that these people were devaluing the posh university (Crisis 39). Students believed that Columbia represented the ongoing problem of rich white institutions oppressing and ghettoizing poor black people for their own financial and social gain (Ivy 1).

Another major issue involved was the fact that the university affiliated with the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDS), which was a consortium of eastern universities for defense research (Isserman 229). Students felt that their university should not be tied together with the government and their attempt to slaughter people in the unjust war in Vietnam. They felt that America’s motives for this war were in the same spirit as the university’s attempt to oppress the neighborhoods of Harlem. Except in the former case the oppressed was the Vietnamese and the results would come violently.

The academic calendar of 1967-68 was highlighted by heightened unrest stemming from members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Students Afro-American Society (SAS) (Dohrn 1). The protests included a Naval Reserve Officers ceremony in May 1965 where students blockaded the entrance of the Low Library, where it took place (Crisis 63). There were protests in November of 1966 and in February of 1967 where students protested CIA recruiters who had come to campus to conduct some interviews (Crisis 64). In April 1967 some students were protesting Marine recruiters at the campus. The first day included a violent backlash between protestors and conservative students. The next day there were protests still occurring at the Marine recruitment accompanied by a protest of the protesters who would not allow people the right to recruit (Crisis 67). A sit-in took place at Dodge Hall in February 1968 to protest recruiters from Dow Chemical, a manufacturer of napalm (Crisis 69). What, to the students’ dismay, had resulted, was a university stronghold against protests in campus buildin

Some topics in this essay:
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