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San Francisco State Strike May Have Lessons for Current Student Protestors

Emil Photo Again Edited 61b7dabb61239

How the nation’s first College of Ethnic studies came about, bringing together Latino, African American, and Asian American disciplines may offer some clues as to how to solve the nation’s current campus turmoil.

After deadline passed to end the Columbia University encampment by 2 p.m. Monday deadline, by early Tuesday morning, student protestors blockaded and occupied Hamilton Hall in a symbolic move.

Emil GuillermoEmil GuillermoProtestors did the same in 1968.

That made me think of San Francisco State University, 1968.

With breaking news at UT-Austin, Emory, and Columbia, the news was filled with call backs to practically every student protest the past six decades as arrests mounted into hundreds in nearly two dozen campuses around the country.

In 1970, the protests at Kent State were over the Vietnam War. Ohio National Guardsmen came in, opened fire, and killed four students.

Less than two weeks later that year, civil rights activists outside a dormitory at Jackson State were confronted by police who opened fire. Two African American students were killed, 12 injured.

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