Title: Columbia University protests of 1968 - Wikipedia
Headings: Columbia University protests of 1968
Columbia University protests of 1968
Contents
Background
Discovery of IDA documents
Morningside Park gymnasium
Protests
Occupation of Hamilton Hall
Activist separation
Popular responses
Suppression of protesters
Second round of protests
Aftermath
Immediate responses
Long term effects
In popular culture
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Content: The morning after the initial takeover of Hamilton Hall, the 60 African-American students involved with the protest asked the predominantly white SDS students to leave. The SAS decision to separate themselves from SDS came as a total surprise to the latter group's members. SAS wanted autonomy in what they were doing at that point in the protest, because their goals and methods diverged in significant ways from SDS. While both the SAS and the SDS shared the goal of preventing the construction of the new gymnasium, the two groups held different agendas. The overarching goal of the SDS extended beyond the single issue of halting the construction of the gym. SDS wanted to mobilize the student population of Columbia to confront the University's support of the war, while the SAS was primarily interested in stopping the University's encroachment of Harlem, through the construction of the gym. It was of great importance to SAS that there was no destruction of files and personal property in faculty and administrative offices in Hamilton Hall, which would have reinforced negative stereotypes of black protesters destroying property then popular in the media. Having sole occupancy of Hamilton Hall thus allowed SAS to avoid any potential conflict with SDS about destruction of university property, as well as with other issues. Thus, the members of the SAS requested that the white radicals begin their own, separate protest so that the black students could put all of its focus into preventing the university from building the gym. The African-American students said that the European-American students could not understand the protest of the gymnasium as deeply, as its architectural plans were developed in a segregationist fashion.