Strike! Page two

Students occupied five Columbia University buildings during April 1968. Protest centered around Columbia's wartime activity, its poor relationship with the surrounding neighborhood, and its relationship with its students, particularly student protesters whom the University wished to discipline or silence. Photograph from The Mortarboard 1975.

The protests were against Columbia’s involvement in government wartime research, as well as a university gym being built in Harlem with little regard for the surrounding community. Despite the domination of SDS by men, some 300 Barnard women took part in the take-over, which brought Columbia’s campus to a stand-still. It ended in police violence when the NYPD was called in to clear the buildings.

The events would bring about reform in the way the University governed itself and its students.

Mounted Police were called in to clear the buldings. Violence would break out against innocent bystanders watching the proceedings, leading to the greatest number of casualties that night. Photograph from The Mortarboard 1975, courtesy of the Barnard College Archives.

A general strike gripped Columbia's campus after the take-over, which some Barnard students supported in solidarity. Professor Julius Held of the Art History department beckoned students back into discussion, as classes continued at Barnard. Courtesy of Barnard College Archives.