Harvard's Communist Uprising, 50 Years Later

Today marks 50 years of my political education. The events of April 9, 1969, helped make me who I am today and the university what it is.

I was a sophomore in college when my fellow students at Harvard University decided that politics, especially the war in Vietnam and the presence of a military training program on campus, compelled them to take over the main administrative building, called University Hall.

Although opposed to this action, I joined the Communists in University Hall to witness the uprising first hand and take pictures. My photographs reveal about 250 students packed into the august President's and Fellows' Room, harangued as they disrespectfully stood and sat among its statues and under its portraits reaching high to the ceiling.

The mood was triumphalist: Finally, students had taken matters into their own hands and showed those deans that they mean business! Flexing their muscles, the students escorted establishment lackeys out of the building, rifled through their files, and announced to humanity the dawning of a revolution.