On March 27th, 1968, three weeks after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, more than 100 members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at Columbia University, in attempt to deliver a petition calling for the University ot sever ties with the Institute for Defense Analysis, violated the University's ban on indoor demonstration by entering Low Library en masse attempting to hand deliver the petition to President Grayston Kirk. Only six SDS members were put on probation, but students by the hundreds rallied by the sundial on their behalf, escalating the cause campus wide. The revolt lasted six days resulting in more than 700 arrests and scores of bloody injuries. This photograph was taken April 30th, 1968, as a buffalo plaid clad student demonstrator is hauled off by one of 1000 police officers who were sent in to put an end the seizure and occupation of Low Library and the three other buildings on campus as well as the capture and containment of Dean Henry Coleman in his office in Hamilton Hall. Surprisingly little has changed cosmetically to Morningside Campus in the 40 years since the events of that week, even the students look about the same then and now decked out in buffalo plaid... What one wonders, though, is why this type of anti war demonstration isn't happening again.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
GREY AND BLACK, students fight back. Columbia University, March-April 1968
