Vietnam U.S. Imperialism and Us, Strike

[Boston]: [New England Free Press], [ca. 1969] 40pp. Original cream stapled wrappers, white interior pages, printed in black. Very good, with light toning to wrappers, wrappers slightly crooked, a tiny spot of staining and partially erased notes in pencil to rear wrapper, and a few annotations in pencil to text. Overall, a sharp copy. In an opening note, the author writes that this publication "is part of our strike to abolish ROTC, end Harvard's expansion into Cambridge and Boston, and to set up a Black Studies Department in accord with the demands of the Afro. It specifically deals with the relations of these demands (mainly ROTC) to the war in Vietnam and American Imperialism." The pamphlet is divided into three parts: "The War on the Campus," "The War in Vietnam," and "Vietnam and U.S. Imperialism." 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. . Original Wrappers. Very Good.