Student Activism at Eastern Michigan University 1961-1970
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Eastern Michigan University DigitalCommons@EMU Master's Theses, and Doctoral Dissertations, Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations and Graduate Capstone Projects 2020 Student activism at Eastern Michigan University 1961-1970 Philip J. Kotwick Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.emich.edu/theses Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Kotwick, Philip J., "Student activism at Eastern Michigan University 1961-1970" (2020). Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations. 1018. https://commons.emich.edu/theses/1018 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Master's Theses, and Doctoral Dissertations, and Graduate Capstone Projects at DigitalCommons@EMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@EMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Student Activism at Eastern Michigan University 1961-1970 by Philip J. Kotwick Thesis Submitted to the Department of History and Philosophy Eastern Michigan University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in History Thesis Committee: Steven Ramold, Ph.D. Chair Ashley Johnson-Bavery, Ph.D. February 17, 2020 Ypsilanti, Michigan Dedicated to My mother and father, for all the faith to finish this project. My wife, for her unconditional love and support. My two heroes, Ben and Emma. Dr. Richard Goff, whom I promised to return someday, now you can rest in peace. SO3 Denis Miranda, USN, for teaching me to measure people by the size of their heart and not the size of their flippers. ii Acknowledgments Returning to a college campus after a twenty-year absence to complete a project that began on the cusp of entering flight school as a young Ensign in the Navy proved to be a long and periodically trying experience. It could not have happened without the unconditional support of parents, brothers, sisters, friends, colleagues, and a wife whom I met nearly on the spot where student Paul Galia and police chief Herbert Smith negotiated the arrest of protestors Monday afternoon, May 11, 1970, in the event that commenced rioting on campus. Without the guidance of great professors like Drs. Richard Goff, JoEllen Vinyard, Ronald Delph, Richard Nation, Steven Ramold, James Egge, and Ashley Johnson Bavery, this effort would have been even more complicated. Dr. Goff made me promise to return and teach once I got “the baby-killing out of my system,” and with the completion of this work, I partially fulfilled my promise. Unfortunately, he passed away before he could see it. He would never have guessed that in-between here and there, I would have participated in nearly every conflict on the globe, and despite his pacifist nature, I know he would have been proud of every decision I made along the way. Following the path of being a Naval Aviator who deployed nine times, I have to offer thanks to a family that was always there when I landed. They suffered the most and are some of the greatest patriots I know. Also, thanks to Josh “Spaz” Rehyer, Matt “Hazmat” Kennedy, Weylin “Smithers” Windom, Mark Springer, Yvonne Roberts, Jeff Draeger, Dan Lynch, Jim Buckley, Mike Napolitano, Rick Latour and Kenny VanFleet for mentoring me through a challenging career and teaching me to be safe while still being a weapon. iii In the transition from military to the civilian sector, thanks to Jason Clippert, Tony Buttrick, MaryAnn Schummer, Paul Orlando, Suchitra Varma, the Calnen family, and Melvin Abraham for their support and guidance. Only a second career led me to create the financial support that enabled this project. The friendship and mentorship offered along the way kept me balanced. Thanks to all fellow graduate students as well as the rest of the faculty and administration at Eastern Michigan. Finally, thanks to all the alumni who made the ending of the decade of the 1960s the most memorable in the history of Eastern Michigan University. iv Abstract On the campus of Eastern Michigan University, the turbulent decade of the 1960s passed by almost without notice. Only small groups protested the war in Vietnam or racial equality on campus. Beginning with the seizure of Pierce Hall by black students in February 1969, student activism escalated until May 1970 when campus erupted in protests and riots on a level that exceeded the most active campuses in the nation. This paper uses mostly first-hand accounts of the entire decade recorded in the student newspaper, Eastern Echo; archived documents; and secondary sources to document the decade of activism at Eastern that ended in the riots. This paper avoids oral histories and interviews due to avoiding scope with a project more in order with a dissertation. This paper provides a rare historical documentary dedicated to student protest and activism at Eastern and provides a mirror to other small conservative blue-collar campuses. v Table of Contents Dedication ........................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii Abstract ............................................................................................................................... v List of Figures ................................................................................................................... vii Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 2 Chapter One: The Roots of Student Activism 1961-196 .................................................... 5 Chapter Two: White Student Activism 1966-1969: The Rise and Fall of the SDS ....... 16 Chapter Three: Black Student’s Quest for Equality 1967-1970: Black Power .............. 42 Chapter Four: Alienation of Student Body 1969-1970: Arrival of the Counterculture .. 70 Chapter Five: Ten Days in May 1970: The Riots ........................................................... 95 Chapter Six: Postscript to the Riots: The Sandalow Commission ................................ 125 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 139 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 144 Appendix A: Timeline ................................................................................................... 148 Appendix B: Key Administrators .................................................................................. 151 Index ............................................................................................................................... 152 vi List of Figures Figure 5.1: Protest Movement May 5 .............................................................................. 97 Figure 5.2: Protest Movement May 6 .............................................................................. 99 Figure 5.3: Protest Movement May 11 (afternoon) ....................................................... 107 Figure 5.4: Protest Movement May 11 (evening) .......................................................... 111 Figure 5.5: Protest Movement May 12 .......................................................................... 114 Figure 5.6: Location of Damaged Buildings .................................................................. 116 Figure 5.7: Protest Movement May 14 .......................................................................... 121 Figure 5.8: Location of Jarvis Street Barrier on May 15 ............................................... 123 vii Introduction Life at Eastern Michigan University (Eastern) was idyllic and relatively insulated from the events of the 1960s and early 1970s that occurred, literally, all around them. The University of Michigan, six miles west on Washtenaw Avenue, was the epicenter of student activism in the nation. Rarely eclipsed by events at Columbia University in New York or the University of California at Berkeley, student activism at the University of Michigan remained active and continuous. A significant reason for this lies in the genesis of the organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and that most of the founding members were students or faculty at the University of Michigan. Those early activists founded the SDS in Port Huron, Michigan, an hour and a half drive northeast of Eastern, through a political manifesto on student activism titled the Port Huron Statement in June 1962. Also, the United Auto Workers labor union headquartered in Detroit, twenty minutes east of Ypsilanti, whose members’ children undoubtedly attended both Michigan and Eastern Michigan University, contributed to the overall national activism and quest for civil rights. With these activities occurring within minutes of Ypsilanti, student activism at Eastern remained almost non-existent. The early "hippies" were a novelty, and as the counterculture grew on campus, bawdy fraternity members and athletes squelched it at nearly every opportunity. Those conditions all changed in May of 1970. In the days following the gunning down of students protesting the invasion of Cambodia by the United States at Kent State University in Ohio, Eastern Michigan University erupted in a way that few campuses in the nation ever achieved. A student population that never engaged authority rose in violation