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For 1968 Activists, a Look Back
By Betsy Morais and
PUBLISHED APRIL 21, 2008
Forty years ago this week, Columbia made its mark on the national scene with legendary protests that shaped the University's history. Now former activists are reuniting for a look back.
Spurred on by the liberal campus group Students for a Democratic Society, activists rallied against the University’s proposed gymnasium in Morningside Park, the school’s connection with a think tank conducting research for the Department of Defense, and an autocratic disciplinary code. On April 23, 1968, SDS members gathered at the Sundial in protest, and by the end of the week, students occupied Hamilton Hall, Low Library, Fayerweather, Avery, and Mathematics. In the early morning hours of April 30, 1,000 New York police officers descended upon Morningside Heights—arresting over 700 and injuring 100.
By the end of the school year, the University’s gym construction was indefinitely suspended, classes were canceled for the rest of the term, and members of the graduating class of 1968 walked out on their commencement ceremony to start their own counter-commencement.
Now, those activists, alumni, and others who were present for the controversy are gathering together once more to commemorate the experience. A committee of six alumni organized a series of discussion panels and social activities that will start at the end of this week to reflect upon the significance and impact of the events that transpired during that infamous April.
The University is not officially supporting the events, but will be providing free space for the events.
When asked why Columbia is not hosting an official program to look back on the 1968 demonstrations, journalism professor Todd Gitlin said, “I just thought, since Columbia was so profoundly shaken and one might say traumatized by those events, it did behoove the University, I believe, to bring 40 years of reflective thought to bear on this central event in its history.”
Yet as Gitlin remarked, the profound emotional and political charge of the 1968 campus protests elicits its own philosophical dilemma about the appropriate means by which to pay tribute.
“I do know that there is a range of feelings about this. But my involvement has been that there is some kind of University—even if modest—marking of this in an academic, intellectual way,” University President Lee Bollinger said. He later added of rallying against the gym, “There continues to be a division of opinion about how to think about that, and part of the motivation of these events that are coming up is driven by the feeling that we still have work to do for a generation of people who feel that this has not been resolved.”
The alumni-organized conference will last four days, April 24-27, although many former student activists are arriving sooner to reunite and remember.
“Well, number one, don’t forget that the ’60s were sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. Number two, the ’60s was fucking Vietnam,” Neal Hurwitz, CC ’68, said and added, “We were all basically screwing each other, having a wonderful time.”
Still, Hurwitz believes that the upcoming events planned by his peers lean too drastically to the left by idealizing the protests, and that Bollinger’s appearance is inappropriate.
“What you have basically is a commemoration and they want to pass on the torch to student activists, and it’s very important to feel that you validated your youth,” said sociology professor Allan Silver, who was a member of the 1968 ad hoc faculty group steering committee during the demonstrations.
But CC alumnus and one of the event’s organizers, Hilton Obenzinger, hopes this week’s tribute will be a period of self-scrutiny and nuanced reflection. “We attempted to reach out to people with a variety of viewpoints and experiences to participate,” he said, later adding, “We’re not sure how many will be interested in telling their stories, but we hope they will be able to tell their accounts in a productive atmosphere.”
CORRECTION: In the original article, quotes of Neal Hurwitz, CC '68 were incorrectly attributed to Tom Hurwitz. Tom Hurwitz was a participant in the 1968 student strike and has been part of the committee that is organizing the conference on its anniversary.
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Just so Tom H is happier, I did not/would not make the inane comments as reported either!...and I am CC'66...
I am disappointed by the inaccuracies...
Such is life...and how history is made...but it is debilitating some times!
I DID note and it is there: Tom and the organizing committee did not allow diverse views and that is just fact.
Good to see my friend Steve Weinberg here!---the man who founded Project Double Discovery!
Thanks, Neal HURWITZ
(PDD '65-'66)
And in loving memory of Joy Lewis B'67, who was with us at PDD in '66, and in Hamilton in '68, and some of the others gone now: Morgenbesser, Deane, Truman, Morgulis, Feigin, Melman, Hopkins, et al.
Hi. I'm a junior at Columbia's School of General Studies, and I'm also a Correspondent for CTV NEWS (Columbia Television News). My story for this week's newscast (which airs live on channel 37 Sunday at 7pm, then will be online) will be on the 1968 Protest and this week's activities. I'm looking for someone (or more than one) that was actually there back in '68 and is willing to do an interview, possibly taking viewers step by step through what happened from your perspective (as a student, or whatever your position). I'd also like a few responses to the protests, both positive and negative..as I need to cover all sides to remain an unbiased journalist. Is anyone willing to help me, and mostly viewers, by helping us with a glimpse into those ground-breaking moments??? I'd greatly appreciate it. If so, please email me as soon as possible to lar2147@columbia.edu. Thanks so much!
-Lindsay Rhebb
As I prepare to come to campus this weekend for the planned events, I've been reflecting and discussing with my current friends the events of 68 from their less immediate perspective so as to gain some additional perspective, myself. Perhaps it's worth noting that I have not previously spent significant time reviewing these events in my mind. The events, having achieved the status of myth in my life, were beyond examination - until now.
It must first be said that the student uprising and strike of April '68 occurred because political leaders on campus had taken inherent student opposition to militarism (the war in Vietnam) and to racism, and showed us all how these institutions were deeply entrenched even in our University - the gym in Morningside Park and the Institute for Defense Analysis doing war-promoting research on campus. So we were showing our opposition to war and racism by trying to uproot it from our own university community.
Today's student activists should be taking a page from that grand strategy in bringing today's social and political issues home to students in a tangible form.
I am not capable of judging the extent to which Columbia in 2008 has been transformed into an institution which is now much more a part of the solution and much less a part of the problem.
And I choose these words carefully. No one - certainly no world-class institution - can be wholly divorced from the political, social and economic forces in the world which underpin the recognized problems of the past and the present. Those relationships - both obvious and sometimes hidden - are the given for Columbia and for all of us.
What we returning veterans of that infamous Spring of '68 hope to see - OK what I hope to see - is the extent to which Columbia learned from that experience and has instituted structures that have altered the community culture in ways that not only can and have reduced support for racism and militarism within the university community, but have become examples to other university communities for converting militarism into conflict transformation and for converting racism into the integration of diversity as a value and a practice.
Did we accomplish anything more in the spring of '68 than motivating the university to complete all of the (lovely) campus gates in order to assure better crowd control "the next time"? Is Columbia's dramatic expansion northward into Manhattanville a good or a bad example of town-gown interdependence and development in the 21st Century? Has the Double Discovery Center - another Columbia outgrowth of the 60's that graduates it's 43rd class on May 17th - brought Columbia closer to the non-elite New York City community or is it just another Federal program that supplies the University with grant overhead money to keep the heat on and the grass cut?
These are some of the issues I'd like to see discussed this weekend.
Sure it will be great to see old friends and faces - many for the first time in 40 years. Sure it's going to be just plain fun to relive that amazing week and its immediate aftermath with people who are beginning to have trouble remembering their own children's names.
But I also hope to get a sense of how that week mattered. How that week provided our Columbia community with a seismic shock that ended up not as a destructive force but as the opening up of a blockage that allowed the Columbia community to better live up to its own noble ideals.
Steve Weinberg CC '66 Urban Planning '68
Co-Founder Project Double Discovery 1965
Chair: Cit Council 1965-66
See you this weekend.
Greetings!!
Happy Spring!!
So...
I have tried to help keep the record straight...the one who knows more is Allan Silver...
I am a member of the Class of '66...not '68!.
I founded Friends of SNCC at CU in '64-65 and ran SEER for Steve
Weinberg at Project Double Discovery in '65 and '66. I was a grad student and faculty (Roger Hilsman's TA) in '68, when Tom Hurwitz, Leo's son, ran around in a red bandana in SDS and the "occupation"...
I was active with the Ad Hoc Faculty---more to the left then than Silver!---and then ran SRU with Steve Silberblatt et al...I like to think that we helped Mike Sovern get the University Senate started...etc.
We all have to keep a sense of humor, but also:
I did not only say what David says I said of course...
I am not Tom Hurwitz who is not even Jewish! LOL...I love Tom and also hate his politics and lying...there is NO diversity at this conference and David: SDS was not a liberal org in '68 when Rudd took over from Kaptchuk, et al.
Along with Silver, who knows a lot and has a lot to contribute, I tried to participate in making this meeting at CU meaningful...
The President of Columbia should know that the organizers excluded diverse points of view! The President 'should not' be particioating in this "reunion" and the organizers have hoodwinked anyone who thinks this is a time of rational discourse...they just want what they wanted and all others be damned...
Sorta like '68 actually...
The arrogance and self-righteousness of the left always left me cold...and many of them are sneaky/liars and we know about the Stalinist-type killers too! I am sad that Pres Bollinger does not seem to get it...by participating, he is legitmating repression and suppression of alternative views!
Not good for Columbia! I would and have said the same to Juviller, Gitlin, and Baxandall!...and even Piven...
Anyway, if they wanted a reunion or celebration, fine! But to say and write as they do that they have been even-handed is just false and I am embarassed that the President is lending his support to this deception.
Good to read Arthur Spector '68 here...another view among many that the organizers did not/do not want...If Hilton said what he is stated as saying, he is dissembling.
Thanks! L'Chaim!
Neal ...in Hilton Head, SC with family...
nealhugh@aol.com
646-884-0594
###
There was a lot going on besides what this article mentions. The police burst into a privately owned apartment building on 114 Street, because it was adjacent to one Columbia owned, and charged four people they dragged from the building with trespassing. Two lived there and two were their guests. The police had NOT been invited in. Police atrocities from Abner Louima to Sean Bell are not a recent development. Failure to address this issue 40 years ago has allowed the recent atrocities, just as those who did nothing about VietNam 40 years ago are partically responsible for the atrocities in Iraq today.
Thomas Wm. Hamilton C'60
153 Arlo Road
Staten Island, NY 10301
The Class of 1968 will have its reunion activities at the end of May - we expect a large turnout - we have in the past talked about the Spring of 1968 and do not have it on the agenda as for us inasmuch as it is old news. ( To my knowledge there is no Hurwitz in the class of 1968.) The class of 1968 was full of exceedingly bright - talented individuals from across the country - it was a great time to be at Columbia and in the City - and graduates went off in large numbers to medical school and law school and business school and graduate schools across the country in English and Philosphy and Math and Chemistry and countless other fields. We were all concerned about American foreign policy - and cheered to by our Ivy League Championship basketball team - nationally ranked as well. They were serious times and as the first to march out of St. John the Divine leading the class of 1968 to the Counter Commencement, I wish we had a smarter bunch in Low Library ..but Columbia College was a fabulous place to go to school and Columbia students in the buildings would have achieved more had they spent their time in the political process. The disruptions were unfortunate since in my view ,they represented a deep concern for the War with a University unable to cope with these concerns. Today - such a uprising would not take place - the President and the Deans would be out with the students. Columbia has always been a place where students are aware of the world around them. The Class of 1968 was not complacent - or subdued ..but in the end, the University learned to be more responsive to students - a good thing that came from that Spring. It was a fabulous four years for my classmates and me. It was a time of great change in America and we witnessed it and participated in it for sure. It surely was much dulller on other Ivy League campuses. James Brown was at the Apollo theater and Thelonius Monk was at the Village Vanguard and there were lots of good times. And an exceptional faculty.
Arthur Spector 1968 Columbia College and Senior Class President
However the "committee" tries to spin, the "student" strike of 1968 was a disgrace to Columbia. Neal Hurwitz was correct in his assessment.
Dear Spectator Editors,
Perhaps I should introduce you to name checking. The person whom you were quoting in your article (For 1968 Activists, a Look Back) is NOT me. I was part of the 1968 student strike and have been part of the committee that is organizing the conference on its anniversary. I would never have made the inane comment on the '60's, or the uninformed statement about the upcoming conference.
Columbia 1968-08 will be a serious look at the events of 1968 in the light of history, and in the light of the world today. We expect it to be engaging and relevant to today's students and historians, as well as to alumni of those years and anyone else who is interested.
TOM Hurwitz
Please read my post above. I'm looking for someone who will do an interview about a look back into '68 protests. Please let me know if you are able to meet on Saturday possibly.
The writers have their Hurwitzes mixed up. The frivolous and dismissive comment was obviously made by Neal Horowitz who has been trying to impede the organizing of this event for months. Tom Hurwitz is one of the organizers of the conference and has worked hard to create an event that should be illuminating to alumni, students, and historians.
Certainly Neal's comments were erroneously attributed to Tom, and I'm sure Tom has worked hard at putting this event together, but one look at the list of speakers makes it obvious to all that this is merely a glorified reunion, and nothing more.
And so the commemoration begins!
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