Push Comes to Shove, the Escalation of Student Protest

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1970 First edition, first printing. Publisher's gray cloth, stamped in black and red foil, with a variety of hand configurations to front board including the iconic Harvard fist design, red endpapers; in its original dust jacket designed by David Porter, with matching design to front panel. Fine book; very good unclipped dust jacket, with some rubbing and soiling to panels, and a few nicks to edges. Overall, a crisp copy. In this book, Steven Kelman, Harvard class of 1970, "records (from his own particular vantage point as a socialist and political activist opposed to violence) the events that led up to the violent occupation by Harvard students of a university building in April 1969-the occasion of the famous 'Harvard Bust.'" The 1969 Harvard strike centered on a number of concerns by Harvard students and members of the Harvard chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), most notably rent increases and Harvard expansion, the prominent role of the ROTC on campus (and, more generally, Harvard's involvement in the Vietnam War), and the lack of a Black Studies department at Harvard. On April 9th, 1969, several hundred protesting students occupied University Hall. Harvard president Nathan Pusey called in the police to remove the protesters, and a violent clash ensued, which resulted in many student arrests and injuries. This event was followed by an eight-day strike by students and faculty. In the wake of the strike, the ROTC was demoted to an extracurricular activity and eventually phased out of Harvard completely for the remainder of the Vietnam War, and a Department of Afro-American Studies (later re-named the department of African and African American Studies) was established. . First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Dust Jacket Included.