Final Exam Essay

A VISUAL HISTORY OF

CAMPUS PROTESTS Over the last month, students at universities across the country have staged protests and hunger strikes,

called for administrators to step down and buildings to be renamed, all in the name of feeling safe on

campus. They join the thousands of students who held similar rallies and sit-ins, and raised voices over

civil rights, wars, sexual assault, and free speech over the last century. Here is a look at the storied

history of campus activism since the 1960s. By Emily Jane Fox, November 20, 2015NOV

T I M E & L I F E P I C T U R E S 1 / 1 2

Atlanta University Protests A group of civil-rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., gathered in 1960 on the campus of Atlanta

University to join thousands of students who marched and staged sit-ins at local businesses, from lunch counters

to department stores. The non-violent student activists hoped to spur the city into integrating lunch counters and

ending segregation throughout Atlanta.

N A T F A R B M A N 2 / 1 2

Berkeley Sit-In Police removed a student from Sproul Hall

where students were holding an all-night

sit-in at U.C. Berkeley in 1964. The

demonstration was the culmination of one

of the most seminal protests of the Free

Speech Movement, after a student was

arrested for handing out information on

civil rights on campus. Nearly 800 students

were arrested as part of the sit-in, but the

university ultimately voted to end all

restrictions on political activity.

1 9 6 8 / D A I L Y N E W S , L . P . ( N E W Y O R K ) 3 / 1 2

Columbia University Vietnam

Protest Columbia University students waved the

Viet Cong flag as they took a non-violent

occupation of a campus building that

lasted for close to a week in 1968. The

students were calling for the university to

stop conducting research for the Vietnam

War, and after negotiations with the

administration failed, more than 700

students were arrested and many were left

injured.

T I M E L I F E P I C T U R E S 4 / 1 2

Harvard Strike Over the span of two weeks

in April of 1969, Harvard

students who were

diametrically opposed to the

Vietnam War and its

Reserve Officers’ Training

Corps presence on campus

kicked up a string of

demonstrations. Once

students took over one of

the college’s oldest

buildings, University Hall,

administrators called in

police who used Mace and

clubs to clear out the

demonstrators.

© C O R B I S . A L L R I G H T S R E S E R V E D . 5 / 1 2

Kent State Members of the Ohio

National Guard fired into a

crowd of thousands of anti-

war protesters who had

gathered at Kent State

University in 1970. Four

people were killed and nine

were injured, after which,

students and demonstrators

were cleared off campus.

6 / 1 2

Apartheid Protests As many students did all over the country in the 1970s and 1980s, Columbia University students took a stand

against apartheid. About 150 student protesters blocked the entrance to Hamilton Hall, calling on the school to

divest its investments in South Africa in order to put pressure on the nation to change its policy.

A P 2 0 1 1 7 / 1 2

Occupy Wall Street As the Occupy Wall Street movement took hold in 2011 and students began to join in at campuses across the

country, riot-clad police officers pepper sprayed a group of peaceful protesters in the University of California,

Davis’s quad.

8 / 1 2

U.Va. Vigil

Students gathered in late 2014 at the University of Virginia to raise awareness of sexual assault on campus, as

an account of gang rape at a campus fraternity as reported in Rolling Stone was called into question.

2 0 1 4 G E T T Y I M A G E S 9 / 1 2

Emma Sulkowicz Mattress Protest

Emma Sulkowicz, then a student at Columbia University, carried her mattress everywhere she went around

campus, including to her graduation, in protest of the school’s inaction once she reported, in 2013, being raped

as a sophomore on campus. She committed to carrying the mattress, often with the help of groups of fellow

students, as part of her thesis project and vowed to continue until the school expelled the student she alleges

raped her.

2 0 1 4 A N A D O L U A G E N C Y 1 0 / 1 2

Ferguson Rallies Students stood for four

minutes of silence at St.

Louis University in October

2014, after months of

rioting rocked the region in

the wake of Michael

Brown’s death in Ferguson.

Brown, 18 years old, was

killed by a police officer in

the street just a few months

earlier.

1 1 / 1 2

University of

Missouri Hunger

Strike Jonathan Butler—the

University of Missouri

graduate student who

became the face of campus

protests related to racism on

campus—addressed

students once Mizzou’s

president, Tim Wolfe,

resigned. Butler, who went

on a hunger strike until

Wolfe stepped down in

early November, gained

support from a number of

organizations on campus,

including the football team.

1 2 / 1 2

Yale Protest

Students protested at Yale University in

November after several incidents that they

deemed racist and said made their campus feel

unsafe, including a fraternity allegedly turning

away students from a party because they

weren’t white.

EMBER 20, 2015

Retrieved from Vanity Fair website at <https://www.vanityfair.com/news/photos/2015/11/campus-protest-photos> on 1

December 2019.