The 1960s Student Protest Movement at the University of Illinois

Michael Metz, a 1970 University of Illinois graduate who later earned a master's in history and wrote a book on the subject, traced three phases of the campus student movement: the early-1960s free speech fight over the Clabaugh Act and the W.E.B. Du Bois Club, the anti-war and anti-draft mobilization culminating in the 1967 Dow Chemical sit-in, and the violent phase after the 1968 Chicago convention, ending with the 1970 student strike and riots. He discussed the parallel Black Power movement and Project 500, the subordinate role of women, the Daily Illini as a source, and the movement's legacy. A long audience Q&A followed, including pushback from participants of the era.