Biggest college protests
When a small student protest led to the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970, outraged students across the US launched some of the biggest college protests of all time. As we approach the anniversary of this historic massacre, we take a look at the largest and most impactful student protests in recent history.
When an unprecedented number of students turned out for a November 2010 march in this city to protest tuition hikes, what started out as a peaceful protest eventually turned violent. Riot police reportedly used batons to fight back against a crowd hurling bottles, signs and eggs. Students stormed government buildings, resulting in at least eight people being injured.
A big hike in tuition fees led students at University of California campuses to dissent in late 2009. Students set up “tent cities” at campuses and kept protests peaceful for the most part, although students were arrested on several occasions when they didn’t vacate sit-ins at school buildings.
Students from National Taiwan University organized a sit-in at Memorial Hall to highlight democratic reform. This six-day sit-in drew thousands of demonstrators and was dubbed the Wild Lily Movement. It’s credited as the turning point in Taiwan’s move towards democracy.
Students at Gallaudet University, a university for deaf students, protested the board appointment of a new school chief in 1988. The Deaf President Now protest saw students organize rallies, barricade school gates, burn effigies and succeed in shutting down the school for a week. They were successful in instating a deaf man as president and ensuring that the board be comprised of at least 51 percent deaf people from that point on.
Students at Athens Polytechnic locked themselves in buildings in November 1973 in protest of the junta in power since 1967. Students broadcasted on a pirate radio station to rally support and civilian workers soon joined the protest to restore civil rights.
About 100 students from Jackson State College (Jackson State University) in Jackson, Miss., protested several issues on May 14, 1970, including this controversial war and a tragic school shooting earlier that month. Rioting students set several fires on campus and overturned a dump truck. Two students died.
Students at more than 850 colleges (and a shocking number of students) across the United States held strikes in protest of the Vietnam War and a college massacre. Some students turned violent, even burning ROTC buildings. The largest protests took place in a West Coast city and the capital.
After several days of rallies over a US invasion 2,000 students at Kent State University in joined together for an on-campus protest May 4, 1970. The National Guard was called to disperse the crowd but ended up killing four people and injuring nine.
Local residents of Berkley, Calif., built a park on derelict land owned by this university in the spring of 1969. An actor-turned governor sent police officers to the park who clashed with the protestors. Several people were injured and one died.
German students protested a controversial war, the authoritarian style of the German government, and student living conditions, among other issues, in the late 1960s. The climax of the movement occurred when 80,000 marched in Bonn, West Germany to protest legislation that would allow the government to act in crisis such as war.
Nearly 2,000 students at this New York college organized a sit-in in October 1948, calling for the firing of department chairman William Knickerbocker. He eventually stepped down but not before 16 students were arrested.
Source:Specials
