The 1968 Columbia University Occupation seems to have been a key turning point towards Violent Direct Action

One group of Columbia students, the “Praxis Axis”, advocated more organizing & nonviolence. The opposing group was the “Action Faction”.

In the early spring 1968, the Action Faction took control of Columbia University’s SDS chapter.

MLK’s assassination on April 4, 1968 and the Columbia Revolt 2 weeks later brought the student movement into new violent phase.

SDS’s 20 months between Columbia Revolt in April 1968 & Weather Faction going underground in Dec. 1969 hold lessons for today’s #occupy

April 1968 protest at NYC’s Columbia put future Weatherman Rudd in the driver’s seat of the American Student Movement

May 22, 1968 marked the second Columbia showdown, a much more violent revolt than the April strike. Protesters set fires to parts of campus.

Columbia immediately ignited student power demonstrations across USA , fueled by antiestablishment sentiments rather than attainable goals

Columbia radicalized the student movement. The SDS’s slogan of “two, three, many Columbias” inspired radical students all across the country

Student Movement took on thousands of new members in 1968, and began to develop a more radical approach in their analysis and activities.