Alumni Reminisce as 1968 Events End

After a weekend of nostalgia and remembrance, the 1968 commemoration drew to a close, as former students honored those who had since passed on by celebrating the accomplishments of both alumni and the whole of the University.

A Sunday morning memorial for the dead drew both tears and laughter when around 50 alumni filed up to the microphone to share stories of friends and relatives lost since 1968.

Thulani Davis, BC ’70, and Hozan Senauke, CC ’69 and a Soto Zen priest at the Berkeley Zen Center, began the memorial service. Senauke led the audience in breathing, while Davis tapped a brown singing bowl.

“Usually we think of time ... as one direction. Not really, it would be more useful to think of time like an ocean,” Senauke said. “So those who we remember here, those who died, leave us with a mystery: ‘Are they dead or are they alive?’”

Among the remembered were Andrea Eagan, who got married inside Fayerweather during the spring protests, and Ted Gold, a member of the Columbia chapter of Students for a Democratic Society who died in a 1970 Greenwich townhouse explosion.

Arnim Johnson, CC ’71, asked for the remembrance of Rick Johnson, a friend at Columbia who was a conservative black student and opposed the protests. Brian Flanagan took a moment to commemorate John Jacobs, CC ‘69, as “a man who embodied perhaps best the spirit of rebellion and resistance of those times.”

The service closed with a Christian funereal prayer in church Latin, a recitation of the Jewish Mourner’s Kaddish, a quotation from the Buddha, and a spiritual that opened: “Brother, now our meeting is over and surely we must part. And if I never anymore see you, I will love you in my heart.”

Afterwards, an open-mic event drew a range of comments about Columbia in 1968 and today. Speakers cited topics, including homophobia, which they felt had not been sufficiently addressed during the conference, and called for continuing attention to the ideals associated with their movement.

“Walking across the campus, it’s so diverse it’s mind-blowing to me,” Zeke Rabkin, CC ’69, said. “I’m generally a pessimistic person, but looking at some things after not being on campus for 40 years is amazing.”

But Vajra Kilgour, BC ’71, said that University President Lee Bollinger “for my money, is Grayson Kirk with a smiley face,” which was met with applause from the crowd.
Kilgour and others drew attention to the ongoing controversy surrounding Columbia’s recently approved plan for expansion into Manhattanville, which several said they opposed.

“The question is,” said Walter South, a member of Community Board 9, “what are we doing now?”

According to many participants, the most powerful part of the conference was being reunited with companions from an event they still describe as life-changing.
“It’s almost like picking up after all these years,” Samuel White, CC ’69, said of the weekend.

“There are people you don’t recognize,” Jeff Sokolow, CC ’69, said. “And then you look into their eyes and recognize them.” He added, “There are some people who look just about the same, just a little more wrinkled, and there are others who walk with a cane or have serious ailments. ... It really reinforces your mortality.”

Many participants noted the unusual proportion of their classmates who have ended up in what Sokolow called “the helping professions.”

“Most of the folks I’ve talked to have gone on to do things that are kind of community service,” White said. “It’s a struggle that’s ongoing. We have to try to improve this place.”

A large number of the alumni present described themselves as filmmakers, writers, teachers—and, in one case, a constable elected without her knowledge through write-in votes.

“There are very few people,” Sokolow said, “despite the stereotype, who said, ‘Well, I was young, and now I’m going to go to Wall Street and make millions of dollars and that’s all I’m going to do.’”

“Or at least,” Paul Berman, CC ’71, cut in, grinning, “they didn’t show up.”

Another priority, Hilton Obenzinger, CC ’69, said, was to ensure that the participants’ version of the history continues to be recorded and publicized.

“There’s a tendency to distort what’s going on,” he explained, “and to come up with myths and legends—some of them nice myths, some of them not.”

The conference concluded with the dedication of a tree in Morningside Park near 113th Street, where the controversial Morningside gym was slated to be built.

“It’s a monument,” White said, “to the fact that it’s [the gym is] not here because of community struggle.”

The ceremony, which involved longtime local activists and was attended by, among others, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, was described by many as rewarding.

“When all is said and done, and all our mistakes,” Sokolow said, looking around at the grass and trees, “we did a good thing.”

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