A 40-Year Memory - SDS at Columbia

April 23, 1968. Columbia University, New York City. The first protest at Columbia over a proposed gym to be built in Morningside Heights. By the time spring had finished the anti-Vietnam War protests had been added and famous pictures were posted of long-haired students confronting police (or was it vice versa. Memory slips into what one wants to remember.) In many ways this protest was the first that showed what would be happening in many places. It wasn't the first student protest, but that it happened in the Ivy League made it more significant.

It was actually part of a lot longer protest that had begun a year earlier when the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) had discovered a connection between Columbia and a Defense Department think tank. A number of things occurred but the BIG DEAL hit with the gym and resulting protests. But underneath it all was the simmering of a restlessness and anger and a flexing of muscles. SDS and others were in the right place at the right time to take advantage of it.

Last month The New York Times had an article (on Easter Sunday, no less) about the SDS rebirth on the Columbia campus. They titled it "To the Ramparts (Gently)." In it they highlighted the more politically astute and community organizing style of today versus the In Your Face attitude of that other generation.


But as for Columbia, James Simon Kunen, a 19-year old at Columbia, wrote a book called The Strawberry Statement about his involvement which spawned a later movie of the same name.


James S. Kunen is a journalist who has worked for Time, Inc. and has served as a conscientious objector and a public defender.

This set of protests at Columbia lasted for a week, ending April 30. But alas it was only the beginning.