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 Ivy Lea

The protest, however, was also an event of grave seriousness. The protest at Columbia was the most violent and disruptive up until this time. It was the most prolonged protest at the time, at eight days. The students are estimated to have caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages, coming from destruction of property and records. Years of university work were destroyed by a fire that students started. Threats on other university buildings and threats on university officials were made (May 1).

The attitude during the protest was a playful one, largely. When the students raided the president's office they smoked his $100 cigars, drank his brandy, and they slept on his furniture (Avorn 321). There was even a wedding. Richard Egan and Andrea Boroff were married and used a faculty office as a honeymoon suite (Isserman 229).

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).

The black members of the SAS eventually would occupy Hamilton Hall after the white members of SDS chose their own focus. They would call on members of the Harlem community for support and supplies. The Low Library, which included President Grayson Kirk's office, housed the SDS members. They included members of PL, which is a faction of the SDS that is controlled by the Maoist Progressive Labor Party. These people raided the university files, claiming that they found evidence that the university was in fact trying to take advantage of the Harlem community, heavily involved with the IDS and was trying to find ways to hide this from the university's students (Dohrn 1). The mathematics building was occupied with off-campus "crazies." They included radicals such as the East Village anarchists referred to as the "Mother*censored*ers." The Fayerweather building, which housed the social sciences history departments, was taken over by a mix of counter-culture types, graduate students, liberals, and some heavy radical student political protestors. The school of architecture in Avery Hall was also occupied by a random slew of protestors (Ivy 1).

gue institution. It led the way for many protests at universities during the era. It represented the spread of student opposition to the war and racial injustice. It also represented the growing cynicism students felt about whether or not change would actually

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Approximate Word count = 2279
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)