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: 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. In addition, the African-American students knew that police would not be as violent against a group of black students, to prevent riots due to the fact that Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed three weeks prior. What began as a unified effort would soon become a tension-filled standoff between black students and white students as the SAS began to meet separately from other protesters and secluding whites, with each group occupying a separate side of the building. There was minimal communication between the SDS and SAS which led to decreased solidarity between the two forces. An agreement would soon be made between the SDS and the SAS to separate white and black demonstrators. Soon after, the whites left Hamilton Hall and moved to Low Library, which housed the President's office.