1. How did Students Campaign? L/O – To identify the key events and features of the Student protest movement of the 1960s

2. The Growing Student Movement By 1960, the number of students in the USA had doubled since 1950 to over 4 million. This new post-war generation wanted to change society and throughout the 1960s, the student protest movement became increasingly violent and radical. Buoyed by their opposition to the Vietnam War, this movement sought to question and oppose the inequalities and prejudices of US society.

3. Students for a Democratic Society The SDS was formed in 1960 at the University of Michigan. As a student protest movement, it called for ‘participatory democracy’ as a way to create a better society. Drafted by Tom Hayden, its 1962 ‘Port Huron Statement’ called for nuclear disarmament, university reform, an end to racial discrimination, economic inequality, and human rights violations.

4. Students for a Democratic Society Throughout the 1960s, the SDS became the biggest student protest group with over 30,000 members in over 50 chapters by 1967. Influenced by the Civil Rights Movement, the SDS advocated non violent direct action tactics like sit- ins, marches, strikes and boycotts. However these methods became increasingly violent at the 1960s went on.

5. Berkeley Free Speech Movement On 1 st October 1964, CORE student representative Jack Weinberg was arrested for political advocacy on the campus of University California, Berkeley. The University had banned political advocacy for anything but the Republican and Democratic parties! Immediately, over 3,000 students surrounded the police car he was put in for 32 hours until charges were dropped.

6. Berkeley Free Speech Movement Over 1,500 students attempted on 2 nd December to relaunch negotiations for free speech on campus with a sit-in at Sproul Hall. It lasted for only 2 days before police arrived and arrested 800 students. Despite this, in January 1965 the University overturned the rules, allowing for political advocacy on campus grounds – the students had won!

7. Berkeley Free Speech Movement The FSM at Berkeley is remembered for the speech given by SNCC student activist Mario Savio: “There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious — makes you so sick at heart — that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”

8. Columbia University Protests Beginning in March 1968, SDS members began a peaceful sit-in of the Low Library at Columbia University New York. The University had been found to have been affiliated with a weapons research think-tank – the Institute for Defence Analysis (IDA). Students demanded that the University disaffiliated itself.

9. Columbia University Protests SDS Students had also been angered by the proposed plans for a new Gymnasium in Morningside Park – its design was seen as discriminatory to the black residents of nearby Harlem. The design gave residents access to the facility by the ‘back door’ – the gym plans were dubbed ‘gym crow’.

10. Columbia University Protests In April 1968, students continued their protest after six of the original sit-in protesters were put on probation. The SDS organised students to attack the Gym construction site. They then took over Hamilton Hall and held the acting Dean, Henry Coleman, hostage for 24 hours!

11. Columbia University Protests On the morning of 30 th April, the NYPD moved in with tear gas and arrested over 700 students. 132 students and 12 police officers were injured. However the protests paid off. The University ended its affiliation with IDA and scrapped plans for the new gym.

12. Kent State Shootings On 30 th April 1970, President Richard Nixon had announced the escalation of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. On 1 st May, 500 students organised by the SDS held a demonstration on the commons of Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. History students buried a copy of the constitution and draft cards were burnt.

13. Kent State Shootings Over the next four days, protests escalated and the Reserve Officers Training Corps building was burnt down. Protesters attacked fireman! The National Guard was called to disperse the students using tear gas. On 4 th May, the National Guard shot and killed 4 students and injured 9 others.

14. Kent State Shootings 67 rounds had been fired in 13 seconds. The nearest student to have been killed was over 20 meters away. The killings sent shockwaves across the protest movement, leading to a nationwide student strike on 8 th May in over 450 campuses. 4 million students went on strike and over 30 ROTC buildings were burnt down. One banner in New York read, ‘You can’t kill us all’!

15. The Hippie Movement Throughout the 1960s, alongside the wave of student political protest, some students developed an apolitical counterculture movement. Known as ‘Hippies’, thousands of young people began to rebel against parental and societal expectations by developing their own culture and expectations.

16. The Hippie Movement Many of these Hippies experimented with drugs like LSD, listened to psychedelic music, and practiced ‘free love’. Their philosophy was summed up by TIME magazine in July 1967 – “Do your own thing, wherever you have to do it and whenever you want. Drop out. Leave society as you have known it. Leave it utterly. Blow the mind of every straight person you can reach. Turn them on, if not to drugs, then to beauty, love, honesty, fun.”

17. The Hippie Movement The Hippie movement was suspicious of government, rejected consumerism and focused on art, music and religious meditation. The ‘Human Be-in’ of January 1967 in San Francisco popularised hippie culture with over 20,000 attending. In the ‘Summer of Love’ of 1967, over 100,000 Hippies converged on San Francisco to practice ‘being Hippies’.

18. Key Features of the Student Movement Began with small, radical groups of students which lasted several days. Targeted several issues for maximum support and used disruption tactics learnt from the Civil Rights Movement. Became increasingly violent with strikes, vandalism and arson. Developed its own counterculture with a distinctive music culture – The Doors, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead.