1968 Ad

Journal of Social History, Summer, 2008 by Blake Slonecker

Admittedly, the Columbia communes were not purely egalitarian; however, the protestors did attempt to minimize the impact of political, racial, and social difference in the communes through participatory democracy and the language of liberation. In fact, these ideals served as the protest's primary means of minimizing difference among activists. Egalitarianism also helped coalesce a disparate set of community organizations into a singular, coherent, and autonomous activist community.

The scale of student protest led to an important reassessment of the University's identity. Whether the university was "a moral community," (71) "a community dedicated to rational discourse," (72) "a defenseless place," (73) "a place from which to launch radical struggles," (74) or "a broken family," (75) it became clear early in the strike that the protestors challenged the very fabric of life at Columbia. Columbia's vice president considered the protest "a challenge to whether the University will be conducted in an orderly manner or whether it will be torn apart."(76) Rudd insisted that what students "[are] really doing is removing themselves from this ideal situation called the 'university community' in an attempt to gain more leverage within that community." (77) Most observers agreed, however, that "the fundamental strategy of the radical student leaders is that ... they're operating from outside the community."(78) Regardless of whether students protested in order to assert a new role in a restructured university or sought to remove themselves altogether from Columbia, observers agreed that the radical nature of the protest, at least temporarily, threatened an unsuspecting university community. (79) Activist autonomy--whether real or imagined--forced the University to reevaluate the role of students at Columbia.

Columbia activists asserted their autonomy from the University in two basic forms. First, they established functional political independence by creating their own institutions separate from those of the University and establishing specific demands that sought to realign the relationship between students, faculty, and administrators. Second, they created commune environments that fostered a unique community sensibility defined in opposition to the traditional university and mainstream culture.

The Strike Coordinating Committee operated as the most basic organization that intended to establish and exercise protestor autonomy. Protestors established the SCC on Tuesday afternoon to draw up the six demands and expanded as the liberated zone grew. Based on the third floor of Ferris Booth Hall, Strike Central coordinated the operations of the protest, distributed food and cash, and produced a vast number of leaflets. The SCC sought complete self-sufficiency and--aside from relying upon the physical space of campus buildings--largely succeeded in maintaining its independence from University support. The SCC brought together a core of six student leaders and representatives from each of four occupied buildings in an attempt to establish a degree of consensus across campus. Despite this goal, each commune maintained a distinct political culture. The SCC originally formed as an interracial body, but SAS and other black students removed themselves from the centralized authority following the Hamilton eviction. This removal did not necessarily indicate that interracial tension predominated amongst the protest community, but merely that African American protestors valued their autonomy within the overall structure of the protest. (80)