Columbia Revolt (sound)

meanwhile the explosive growth of knowledge still increases the demands upon us the underdeveloped peoples look to us for training and guidance and our own governments the local government state governments National governments look increasingly to the universities for expert Council and for Scholars whom they can borrow to staff posts of high [Music] responsibility however much so that you know cordier came out with this thing that he's going to recommend that every month or every week uh each Dean set aside some time to talk to students who don't have appointments which makes the liberal assumption that what we have here is a failure of communication but that isn't so because it's an analysis of an entire system of the functioning of a corporate entity that is in question the students understand very very well what the ruling class of Colombia does what it is about the university now has become to use an old term a means of production whereby one guy does a little bit for Ida another little bit for CIA where the troops the NRC are trained here and this University is now a means of production producing the mechanisms of human oppression has been bought out by the military 50% of the research done here at this University depends on defense money and we can see when we look at the new buildings that are going up that it's an engineering building a business school a law school a school of international relations we can tell how much this University is hooked into servicing the corporations and hooked into servicing the war machine William Burton is a director for lock heat aircraft Maurice Moore is the council for General Dynamics the F-111 company and a junior partner in his Law Firm was the under Secretary of Defense Kirk himself is uh a trustee of the institute for defense analysis he is president of Morningside Heights Incorporated the organization which is concerned with institutional expansion on morning side Heights also if you if you wonder how it was that Columbia uh acquired the land for the gymnasium a 400-year lease renewable every 5 years after the first 100 years at an incredibly low sum of money all you have to do is look at who the trustees are Percy Urus uh is chairman of the board of the Urus buildings Corporation the corporation which has done 177% of all the building in New York City since the war Benjamin Button Weezer one of the trustees is on the Urus build building Corporation Courtney C Brown who is also on the Urus building Corporation is one of the directors of the board of CBS William saley a trustee uh is chairman of the board of the Columbia broadcasting system uh Arthur Hayes salzberger he's uh chairman of the board of the New York t for two successive sessions of the state legislature uh Colombia's ruling Elite uh made Journeys to Albany New York to convince legislators that this was indeed a wonderful thing for the morning side Heights community that Columbia should uh build its gym there but I don't think a gym nine stories high with facilities for black people in the basement with a back door is something that black people want there has never been any dispute as to the position of this community on the placing of a gymnasium by a priv institution in a public park I don't trust anybody in the administrative network of Columbia University because they have lied they have contradicted themselves Grayson Kirk wrote us a letter saying we have stopped the gym and the next damn day the Board of Trustees States we have stopped the gym temporarily this house went up on violent and this country is going down on violence as a house go up a house must come down like it or not on April 23rd SDS called a demonstration in which we plan to demonstrate inside low library to protest Columbia's complicity with the institute for defense analysis its racism in building the gym in Morningside Park and its attempted suppression of the left by disciplining six students about 500 people join joined us at the Sund we were opposed by about 200 jocks we found that not only were the jocks there blocking our way but we found when we got to low library that library was locked by the administration they must have thought that would stop this but it didn't cuz we went into to Harlem we busted into the gym [Music] site the pigs called in reinforcements [Music] we we were weak down in the park the cops were coming pretty quickly and the numbers were building up and Mark rud got up on dirt mountain and asked us to leave cuz we had 300 people back to Sund we F we go back and meet [Music] them taking Hamilton was and Coleman was just the perfect thing after that except it wasn't so perfect cuz I don't know that point we were really we're moving faster than we U knew how tremendous snowball tremendous almost despite ourselves it was something we really wanted to do on the other hand was something that we weren't sure we ready to do it's our responsibility to use coercion well you've used coercion but we haven't we haven't completed legal means working is a is this political political pressure from congressmen and the community working is our speeches and peaceful demonstrations working you're assuming that if you go through whatever channels you're going through you're going to come out right but we're Hing some of these things have gone on for a week before the outcome has come at that point we took Dean Coleman thinking he was our trump card but we really we didn't know that our real strength was in holding the buildings and staying there the real thing about the black white split was that the two groups realized that we had two different political identities the blacks wanted to stop the gym they figured the best way to do this was to hold the building barricaded the whites on the other hand saw and and still see that our goal is to radicalize other white people people we didn't want to confront other students coming to class we thought that our our we should confront our enemy the administration but we didn't realize we were that we were much too timid and that what we really had to do was to show our our moral strength and hold the building now the blacks saw that we were split amongst ourselves that we weren't disciplined and that we really didn't understand what the correct militant tactic was so they asked us to leave a mar came down from my steering committee meeting and told us that the blocks are is the split we left and took low Library the seat of the administration look it's been two days we've taken five buildings Hamilton low Avery Fairweather M if you've got the administration figured right they're up to calling the cops and when they do we want to be here we bar at the basement and the police were trying to come through so what the brothers did was throw some water hoses on them and knock the police back that kind of thing you know and flooded the whole basement now that was one of the best tactics police were very angry about that but then they stood in charge the building and and they were pretending that they didn't even try to come through the tunnels into the basement of the building but they were trying to like take the building by surprise quietly that kind of thing you know and and beat the movement that way you know try to defeat it before it spread to the black community because I'm sure they weren't that worry about hand exle of black students at Columbia University is when those kind of tactics and that kind of militancy you get from the University and the brothers in the community say look big these brothers up here who got it made a revolting too against the system that's what they were trying to defeat but they couldn't get [Music] through I there were mothers there who didn't have any sons in Columbia who didn't want to see that park there who didn't want Ida to be running down experiments at the school against their children against their families everything from the far right such as har you act to uh the liberal right such as Charles Kat to the far left such as uh Fen and pl and independent uh black militant these black high school kids man they snuck wrap around in right under the nose of hundreds of tpf we when we GA B nights and we walking up Amsterdam Avenue to Columbia we were talking about burning the [ __ ] place down and you know we we came up with baseball bats and hockey sticks and when we got to Columbia we broke through the police line hft in here they why they brought hcft in [Music] here tell here's a statement that was released by the students on the inside I'll read the statement number one stopping of the construction of the gym number two got it dropping of the charges against all persons involved demonstrations against the gy number three breaking of all falcony and administrative ties with ID number four General H for all the students involved when the university has stopped construction of the gym and granted an amesty we will consider the questions of negotiation with the university we are prepared to remain definely until these conditions are met the black students of Columbia University John by a few members of the black community have been in Hamilton Hall for 56 hours more than that now we have established the cafeteria with adequate stor for all continency a position is in charge of our infirmary morale is high [Music] amen of the 200 who went into low only 23 stayed when the first cop scare came but as the days weree on we realized that our strength was in our militancy and staying in those buildings it took the example of the blacks to move us the first thing we did when we got into Kirk's office was hit his files besides uh a bunch of crap in his girly magazines he found a bunch of papers linking Columbia to the ID uh a whole bunch of [ __ ] about putting down SDS and a lot of letters about cleaning up the area by moving out the blocks in the Puerto Ricans first day in math we set up a defense committee which took care of putting up the barricades we decided what our policy would be toward police toward jocks we soaped some of the stairs we taped the windows we emptied bookcases and put them up in front of the windows in case tear gas canisters did get through the tape and it hung up a lot of people when there'd be a little scratch or a mar in one of the marble top desks or something at the second time we built barricades these hangups had disappeared and we decided that barricades were necessary politically and strategically and anything went in making strong and this time permanent type barricades defense is all taken care of security is a problem letting people in and out of the buildings watches we need people to watch the windows every night we had a walkie-talkie set up citizens ban walkie-talkies plus there were telephone Communications to every building which the the university tapped we had three mimeographs at work constantly and there were people who did nothing during the strike but relate to the mograph machine and there was a big sign on the wall quote from somebody in Berkeley which says uh five students and a mograph machine can do more harm to a university than an army every building had their own little Communications room that had to deal with the four or five modes of communication that we were uh we were using [Music] one of the things that would happen was that each new group of people who came in the building each new day's recruitment uh to the building would uh become political would understand the life of the commune would understand what was going on uh by the meeting the stable of commune life was the meeting that we' meet for approximately 8 hours a day a lot of it was political education a lot of it was just [ __ ] a lot of it was worrying about what we do when the police came well SDS is in in name representing the student body but in fact it's a Ste it's a steering committee of of various people from campus and we're now trying to combat a uh a faculty statement to the effect that that U no amnesty will be granted to students under any circumstances the question of amnesty is really important because it's a political question our legitimacy to protest has to be recognized before we can negotiate there seems to be a lot more dignity amongst the students now because they they feel that they have a right to say the things they're saying that's why I think maybe the amnesty issue has been raised and reraised so many times here and we've had to reassure ourselves by by issuing votes of confidence for it every 30 minutes because people are not sure whether they're supposed to be guilty for what they're involved in and the whole issue of demanding amnesty first is to show that we have rights and until we get those rights we have to act in a coercive way the Hang-Ups that are usually present in any kind of collective Enterprise were absolutely not there all year at school I complain about my one roommate in the dormatory but then I got to low Library we had 100 people in three rooms and there was a space sleeping space with 3 ft for two people and the thing the idea of privacy and the idea of sleeping sort of became so insignificant we never really got too much sleep because we were always having meetings and things and people were always yelling and waking us up but we didn't really care as much we slept on the floor wherever we could and that was about it and what the life of the commune was was a group of people who were incredibly close to each other on no other level than the level of struggle the strikers were getting Community Support they were getting blankets food and money but they were also getting some opposition from the faculty and from right-wing students the jocks messed around low they had locked arms and now and then they would they would try and keep the food out they tried to keep a record player out radios everything they were acting as this stes for the administration these people have constructions they're going to stand here arms crossed they're not going to say anything that's our only position how about food no comment on food at the moment [Music] [Music] shut up get out of the way that food is going up there's nothing else to say that food is going up they've been eating these [ __ ] have been eating they haven't of course they have they got plenty of food they don't have any they don't have any left they called us up you haven't been up there don't say anything they don't have any food each have been eating [Music] hey you're getting blood it's all they wanted you're getting it you don't need you don't need to have to mess it up you get they want food in there that food is going up pass pass it up pass it up pass it [Music] [Applause] W stop it you damn fool cut it now the position of the professors was one of being the police that they had to take sides either they were for taking food in or not for taking food in they were on the side of the jocks or on our side but they never understood that the faculty wanted to mediate between us and the administration because they never understood the nature of our demands of our struggle Kirk certainly understood what was going on much better than the faculty did The Faculty was in its own way just as naive as the Law and Order politicians were because the only alternative they could see to the maintenance of the present system was chaos they couldn't see beyond the occupation of the buildings to the creation of something that might be better everyone was for like at least an entire week living in full capacity there was a total Collective feeling no one particularly cared about his individual feelings because he never even experienced them everything was experienced in the most Collective sense that I've I've ever known if you talk to anyone outside they immediately realized that that there was something there that they they had never seen before this was one of the um new experiences for most of the people with the strike it's sort of electric [Music] Awakening A it was communal food we ate what was given to us what we could find but mostly what most important was we shared everything we shared our oranges our Cokes our sandwiches and surprising to all of us was this urge that we didn't want to eat something all by ourselves if somebody beside us was was hungry then we have a sandwich we share our [Music] sandwich people are living here they are living here between meetings and and uh it's a home home it's a home I've never been so comfortable on this campus [Music] [Applause] [Applause] he [Music] [Music] as the spirit and fair weather was so high tonight we decided that it would be entirely appropriate to be [Music] married it was felt that fair weather was not only Holy Ground but was our [Applause] [Music] home and we therefore challeng to be married at home with our family [Music] [Applause] I Andrea take thee Richard I Andrea take thee Richard I Richard take the Andrea I Richard take the Andrea I Now Pronounce that Andrea and Richard are children of the new age [Music] oh you going go [Music] [Applause] you do not peely remove yourself forth with from every thank you D the university will make a complaint immediately of TR to the gr City Police Department in connection with your activities we have been informed that the police department will take all the necessary action is separate and apart from any question of amnesty you will be subject to proper disciplinary action by the university in any event of course those who leave the building pursuant to this order will have less to answer for than those who do not where's the [Music] I and they managed to kind of push them all together and they were all sitting on the floor as they pushed them all together and got them so they could hardly move they would hit um they had something in their hand I was just there these people they don't say they line up and they rush you that run watch it watch it okay get [Music] back bring him into the door the door hey you got doctors in the door bring him into the door there's a doctor in the door Peter there's a doctor in the door there's a doctor in the door back these these guys are animals they're animals they don't uniform face they they attack you from behind you think they they think they talk to you one minute when they hit you in the ne along the staircase there was a solid line of police the people in front of me were dragged down and as they were dragged down each individual cop standing on this line put his licks in and they were laughing I'll never forget it there seemed to have been orders given to this cuz I saw it so often during the demonstration well I I dropped my glasses I was running I asked the cop officer could I please go back and he whacked me in the [ __ ] face wait not so f i was hit with a club on the head I was punched in the nose I found a a student who was Dazed bleeding profusely from the forehead the police refused to let me pass I said this man is wounded he needs help they said get out police had formed two lines which you had to run through being pummeled all the time he he was very fortunate in that he wasn't kicked in the groin as most of the demonstrators were instead he was he just had his legs kicked and his back punched however at the end of the line he was hit with a black jack at which point he was unconscious the next thing that he remembers was that he was uh in the first aid station [Music] [Music] we have nothing against the cops we have it against KK we realize the problem get pictures and get the reported we have a specific issue The Faculty stood with us the students stood outside and the striker stood there we will admit we are guilty we wish to be charged I want this all down we will give names we will give anything no sanity where without our switch is there no thinking here will people not realize this Insanity Cops been up Along on campus I Amil I wish to be arrested two fans have already pulled away now they're moving in another [Music] [Music] one and I'm not going to resist I [Music] hope they got over 700 of us on charges of criminal trust P resisting harass all kinds of other [ __ ] some of which was real and some of which was completely fake I know of nurses and doctors that pleaded with the police not to uh not to proceed to please that these men alone and they would say no no that's that's getaway this is our job I was arrested uh they would not allow me to see a doctor I broken ribs my face was cut I got hit with a pistol under the eye and uh I was bleeding there and I wasn't allowed to see a doctor till I got out of court which was approximately 10 hours later that I was awarded a fellowship for next year what the hell I'm sorry what does it mean I I I I'm going to strike I hope every fact I don't I don't see how any teacher I don't see how any student can attend this school anymore I was completely liberal about the whole thing but this bus has rad radicalized everything body and me very personally no I was a I was a nonviolent student I was completely passive I didn't care what happened I was completely neutral I'm not neutral any longer I'll occupy buildings tomorrow according to six written affidavits compiled by professor of mathematics Serge Lang much looting and destruction occurred inside mathematics between 7:00 a.m. and 2 p.m. during these hours the only people permitted inside the building were policemen members of the press and a very small group of building staff when I got out of jail and got back to math I looked around for my camera and my light meter that I left behind all I found was a lot of exposed film broken lenses who who the [ __ ] else would have done to put the cops it's it's interesting to note that Arthur Hayes salzberger one of the trustees just happens to be the chairman of the board of the New York Times and one wonders why certain things were distorted in the times coverage of the strike other things that appeared in the evening Edition changed in the Morning Edition and I think the answer is clear enough I mean take a look what is this a goddamn police state they got cops all over the campus every entrance the gates are locked you got to show two cards to get in what is this France double deification please double deification [Music] please dou okay get ahead finals study get ahead work Prosper get ahead grades finals get ahead study get ahead jobs get ahead get ahead get ahead papers police ah forward forward private property private property private private a Tre [Music] what is this get out [Music] [Applause] [Music] we now demand we no longer ask a say in decisions that affect our lives we call on all students faculty staff and workers of the university to support our strike we have ask that all students and faculty not meet or have classes inside buildings we have taken the power away from an irresponsible and illegitimate Administration we have taken power away from a board of self-perpetuating businessmen who call themselves Trustees of this University we're demanding an end to the construction of the gymnasium the gymnasium being built against the will of the people of the community of Haram a decision that was made unilaterally by powers of the University without consultation of people who whose lives it affects we are no longer asking but demanding an end to all affiliation and ties with the institute for defense analysis a defense department Venture the operates the university into studies of kill and Overkill that has resulted in the slaughter and maming of thousands of Vietnamese and Americans we are no longer asking we are demanding that students and faculty have a say in the policies of the University we find Our Lives being governed by men who do not understand the problems of the day it has been become increasingly cleared that they don't even understand the elements and the ingredients of the creative Discord that begins to show up in the west today what they are able to do if given their re is to create a world order which in every one of its aspects depends absolutely on the power of the police to maintain it they have no other power when you have under when you have understood the uniform and the badge and the coercive violence of the billy club napon and atomic bom then you have understood absolutely the sole Legacy of those like Grayson Kirk who pretend to Authority in our world it is maturity behind and I suspect one day beyond the tumbled barricades in New York and in Oakland and in Florence in Rome and in Paris and in London which is about to shape the [Music] [Applause] [Music] future this this [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and I ain't going to be treated the [Music] way well she went up she's playing and I'm going where those chilling wind don't [Applause] flow and I'm where those CH so [Music] on top of the world [Music] please join on Southfield our game called trustee see how with dice and a check report decisions have been made in this University then go around and see Liberation classes see how the university should be run is going to be run and will continue to be run without the opes and the power of the administration classes have been set up at this University the purpose of the new classes is to establish a free open Democratic and meaningful discourse between faculty and students we have put an end to the old system and structure of Columbia University classes are being held on lawns on campus in first Booth Hall and in apart of Faculty outside of Campus students were saying three major things first they were saying that they refused to be produced any longer to be sent out into society as some kind of a managerial class second they were saying to The Faculty that they could no longer accept the paternalistic role of teachers traditionally play in the University learning takes place in dialogue and between equal men they said in effect we will no longer let you play some kind of Big Daddy to us third they were saying that the demands and actions had to be taken seriously could not be dismissed with some kind of [ __ ] platitudes about Youth and idealism because they were involved in political action on the highest level of human seriousness tonight there is a new liberated area in this neighborhood we're going to support those 50 community members would have taken over a building presently in the buildings there are 40 to 50 representatives of community groups of political clubs of organizations involved in the morning side renewal Council organizations that have been fighting Columbia's expansion policies for years this is not a student occupancy students right now are the Vanguard but it's the masses of people in area in New York around Columbia it's finally going to stop Columbia well it see I mean sometimes it seems to be a kind of contradiction between support action and fighting your own particular kind of Oppression which is what we always talking about but in fact what we came to see during the strike was when you want to oppose on an institution of that sort got you've got to fight on all fronts Colombia has closed our streets gobbled up our Park land seized over 100 of our buildings and for 3,000 people from their homes is the community action committee predominantly white of the 8,000 tenants of small hotels Sr and Old Law tenaments whom Colombia has systematically displaced only a specially selected token number of minority group families now reside in Morningside height we've deployed this deliberate creation of a white ghetto [Applause] [Music] pick your own wagon your own wagon not wish to be arrested fre to I don't want to be arrested go the wagon or Riverside Drive if you don't want to be arrested Riverside Drive with a wagon drive a wagon want to have aent [Applause] life in order to to show the solidarity of people with six strike leaders who they tried to suspend they decided to take Hamilton once again you are hereby directed we're out of this building will give you further instructions if this building is not cleared out within the next 10 [Music] minutes ask how many of you here are willing now to stay here after three votes a majority decided to [Music] stay if you do not choose to leave this building I have to inform you that we have no alternative but to call the police any student who is arrested will be immediately [Music] [Applause] suspended a lot of the most militant people had left Hamilton because they didn't want to get busted the second time but those were the people the core the stuff that was going around outside building barricades and fighting the cops they're moving line of detectives into the crowd crowd surrounded by the police [Music] [Music] mother [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] people realize that by this time that it wasn't just enough to build up barricades cuz the cops could break them down so they engaged in combat with them they threw lamps at them they charged them with bricks they built up [Music] [Music] barricades start over again take one all right wait I give you give me again with reverberation modern University is the Cradle of the nation's future it has been called the chief energizing and creative force in our entire social system [Music] here we are at uh Columbia University morning side Heights Amsterdam Avenue and 116th Street for the first time in the history of Columbia University there will be two graduat ations in morning Sid Heights the one we're looking at now is the official ceremony acknowledged by the trustees and attended by the faculty and administration at a given signal from the students almost the entire graduating class is expected to leave this ceremony and protest over its legitimacy and to hold their own graduation as a repudiation of the trustees they expect to be joined by a few members of The Faculty [Music] keep your eyes on that hold on hold on boys there's one thing we do know will have to go keep your eyes on that hold [Applause] hold keep your eyes oned Nations make aain every l Freedom keep [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] your people us come on everybody clap people us about 15 out there [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh a few more hours campus will be ours your [Music] keep your our brothers [Music] w [Music]