1969 Harvard "End R.O.T.C" Strike Poster

Price: $1,750.00

Silkscreen Poster. [Cambridge, MA]: [Harvard University], [1969]. Near Fine.

Original brown silkscreen poster, with "End R.O.T.C. Shut It Down!" and an image of a soldier in purple, unevenly trimmed. Near fine, with some creases including three horizontal fold-lines. Overall, a powerful protest image, on a rare protest poster in excellent condition. 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. Item #HARV001