From 1968 to 2007, Still Tangled up in Blue

Nearly 40 years ago, I woke up one morning to the sound of my roommate telling me that I needed to get up to campus, that something was happening in Hamilton Hall and I shouldn’t miss it. We shared a sixth-floor walk-up on 112th Street, half a block from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and we were sometimes slow to hear about what went on within the iron gates, but that morning was different. A junior named Mark Rudd had helped lead a takeover of Hamilton, setting off a chain of events that still linger in Columbia’s collective memory. On Oct. 14, 2007, the online edition of New York magazine contained an article entitled “One, Two, Three, Four, Can a Columbia Movement Rise Once More?” The photograph of a somber-looking junior named David Judd, and the caption indicating his membership in the International Socialist Organization, remind me of my friend Rudd, who was chairman of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) when he led the April 1968 occupation.

It’s easy to cite the similarities between then and now. We were protesting an unpopular war and Columbia’s proposed expansion in the community. The same is true today. There were no nooses hanging from office doors, nor, to my knowledge, any anti-Semitic graffiti in the dorms, but the students who occupied those buildings in 1968 risked bodily harm from those opposed to their actions. They may have escaped the physical retribution of the Majority Coalition, whose members included athletes eager to teach them a lesson, but they could not escape the brutality of the New York cops whose campus invasion was authorized by Columbia President Grayson Kirk, an act that ultimately cost him his job.

The article in New York magazine depicts a group of students whose commitment to political change and whose repeated references to the events of 1968 suggest that the revolutionary spirit is alive and well. In his interviews with Judd and other campus activists, however, writer Philip Weiss conflates their opposition to the war in Iraq with their disparate ethnic identities. We read that “Israel-Palestine is the great wound in Columbia student life,” a digression consistent with his earlier writings. Today’s protestors are more diverse than my colleagues in the late 1960s. Mark Rudd and others have noted the historic predominance of Jewish liberals in the movement, but this is no longer the case. While the recent disagreement over certain faculty appointments has been decidedly factional, the students in the Weiss article are a polyglot group focused on broader issues.

Last month, a number of us who were there in 1968 started talking about a commemoration next spring, an event that would celebrate the lessons learned in an inclusive and positive manner. A few of us even met with a University official and came away encouraged by what we heard.

The time for healing old wounds has converged with the time for effective action against new challenges. We watch from a distance as current events conspire to replicate the social tension that was our constant companion. Once again, representatives of the community are up in arms over Columbia’s proposed expansion. Once again, an administration in Washington is in denial, choosing to finesse the popular rejection of its jingoistic foreign policy. And the beat goes on.

We offer our support to those who would effect change, and we look forward to the exchange of ideas that is bound to occur in the context of our commemoration. Whether or not we can mitigate the current litany of hateful events, we are certain that we can impart the spirit of our movement to those who would oppose the supporters of such events. Rather than romanticize the spirit of 1968, we choose to inculcate the spirit of cogent inquiry and objective discourse, for these are and always will be the tools of a civilized society bent on improving the life of its inhabitants. We are no longer in rebellion, per se, against an establishment bent on drafting us into an unjust war or subjugating our rights based on our race or gender. We are, however, still opposed to the forces of ignorance and bigotry, and the chauvinism of national conceit.

Bob Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue” refers to a time when “there was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air.” Perhaps this will always be an accurate description of our campus, but the nature of that revolution has changed. It’s not enough to voice the platitudes of resistance and then retire to the cafes for fun and games. This country is at a crossroads in its history, and you, its future leaders, must choose how to exert your influence. We invite you to share our memories, and our hope for your success. We are all teachers now, and we need to address our students.