31 Jan 2012
So Long, Farewell

31 Jan 2012
RC Flying People over New York City

The first protest occurred eight days before Martin Luther King's assassination. In response to the Columbia Administration's attempts to suppress anti-IDA student protest on its campus, and Columbia's plans for the Morningside Park gymnasium, Columbia SDS activists and the student activists who led Columbia's Student Afro Society (SAS) held a second, confrontational demonstration on April 23, 1968. After the protesting Columbia and Barnard students were prevented from protesting inside Low Library by Columbia security guards, most of the student protesters marched down to the Columbia gymnasium construction site in Morningside Park, attempted to stop construction of the gymnasium and began to scuffle with the New York City Police officers who were guarding the construction site.

The NYPD arrested one protester at the gym site. Columbia SDS chairman Mark Rudd then led the protesting students from Morningside Park back to Columbia's campus, where students took over Hamilton Hall, a building housing both classrooms and the offices of the Columbia College Administration. During the takeover of Hamilton Hall, the 60 African American Students at Columbia involved with the protest then stated that the white students were not wanted in Hamilton Hall. As part of a Black Power Movement, the African American students claimed that the European-American students could not understand the protest of the gymnasium as deeply as its architectural plans were developed in a segregationist fashion. Respecting the SAS' decision, Rudd then led the white students to other sections of campus; mainly the Low Library and other such buildings surrounding the campus. Over the next few days, the University President's office in Low Library (but not the remainder of the building, which housed the school switchboard in the basement, and offices elsewhere, but no actual library) and three other buildings (including the School of Architecture, whose students began an occupation after being ordered to leave the building while preparing for final examinations) which contained classrooms were also occupied by the student protesters. A photo of David Shapiro wearing sunglasses and smoking a cigar in Columbia President Grayson L. Kirk's office was published in the media.[2] The students who occupied the buildings demanded an end to Columbia University's involvement with the IDA, an end to the gym construction project in Morningside Park and amnesty for all participants in the demonstrations.

Based upon statistics gathered at the time by neutral campus organizations such as WKCR and Spectator (see URL "Columbia 68", Professor R. McCaughey), the majority of Columbia students did not support the demonstration, although there was sympathy for some of the stated goals. A group of 300 undergraduates calling themselves the "Majority Coalition" organized after several days of the building occupation, in response to what they perceived as administration inaction. This group was made up of student athletes, fraternity members and members of the general undergraduate population, led by Richard Waselewsky and Richard Forzani. These students were not necessarily opposed to the spectrum of goals enunciated by the demonstrators, but were adamant in their opposition to the occupation of University buildings. They formed a human blockade around the primary building, Low Library. Their stated mission was to allow anyone who wished to leave Low to do so, with no consequence. However, they also prevented anyone or any supplies from entering the building. After three consecutive days of blockade, a group of protesters attempted on the afternoon of April 29 to forcibly penetrate the line but were repulsed in a quick and violent confrontation. This was the administration's greatest fear; student on student violence. At 5:00 PM that evening the Coalition abandoned the blockade at the request of the faculty committee, who advised its leaders that the situation would be resolved by the next morning.

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Politics, Society