21. What to Do with the $10 Million?
PROTEST & THE URBAN CENTER Protests over civil rights and the Vietnam War dominated the U.S. in the 1960s and Columbia University’s Urban Center was a direct result of its student uprisings in 1968. Black students of the Student Afro-American Society (SAS) were outraged by the University’s planned construction of an arguably segregated gymnasium in adjoining Morningside Park. With strong support from the nearby Harlem community, hundreds of Black students occupied the University’s Hamilton Hall classroom building and took a University administrator hostage. White students of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) were outraged by the University’s complicity in the Vietnam War, and occupied Lowe Library, the administration building. Thousands of arrests were made and the protests attracted worldwide attention and sparked student demonstrations elsewhere. The University discontinued classes, the president resigned, plans for the construction of the gymnasium were indefinitely postponed, and the Ford Foundation made a $10 million line of credit available to the University to establish an urban affairs program. Enter the Urban Center, with Franklin [...]
