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Barbara Ransby speaks to protesters at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, March 20, 1987.

My Time Organizing on Campus Against Apartheid in South Africa

Black internationalism broadened our politics of solidarity.
by Barbara Ransby via Hammer & Hope on July 23, 2024
Demonstrators holding signs during a student walkout over coronavirus pandemic safety measures at Chicago Public Schools.
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Students Are Protesting Covid Policies — And the Adults Who Won’t Listen to Them

For a century, student activists have demanded a say in their schools.
by Jack Hodgson via Made By History on January 18, 2022
A newspaper clipping from the Aug. 7, 1958, issue of the Enlightener, a Black newspaper in Wichita shows the Dockum Drug Store lunch counter sit-in, one of the earliest in the United States.

The Brave, Forgotten Kansas Lunch Counter Sit-in That Helped Change America

The 1958 civil rights protest by Black teens led to the end of segregation at lunch counters all over the state and inspired a wave of sit-ins across the country.
by Kate Torgovnick May via Retropolis on February 6, 2021
Political cartoon of three pigs with oil company logos

The Campus Underground Press

The 1960s and 70s were a time of activism in the U.S., and therefore a fertile time for campus newspapers and the alternative press.
by Liza Featherstone via JSTOR Daily on January 6, 2021
Millicent Brown, age 15, speaks with classmates in September 1963.

The Forgotten Girls Who Led the School-Desegregation Movement

Before Linda Brown became the lead plaintiff in Brown v. Board of Education, a generation of black girls and teens led the charge against “separate but equal.”
by Rachel Devlin, Melinda D. Anderson via The Atlantic on May 30, 2018
Linda Brown Smith stands in front of the Sumner School in Topeka, Kansas on May 8, 1964.

Why Take Student Protests Seriously? Look at Linda Brown

Her death is a useful reminder that students have often served on the political front lines.
by Joshua Zeitz via Politico Magazine on April 1, 2018

The United States & 'The Young and Fearless of Heart'

The March for Our Lives organizers are not an anomaly, but follow in a long tradition of youth activism in America.
by Glenn David Brasher via History Headlines on March 25, 2018
Crowd of students demonstrating.

Walkout: In 1960s L.A., Mexican-American High School Students Took Charge

Fifty years ago, teenagers organized a multi-school walkout that galvanized the Mexican-American community in Los Angeles.
by Paula Crisostomo, Teresa Mathew via CityLab on March 15, 2018

A History of Student Walkouts

Student walkouts have changed American history before. Here's how.
by Olivia B. Waxman via TIME on March 14, 2018

'They Were Assumed to Be Puppets of Martin Luther King Jr.'

For decades, we’ve been replaying the same absurd partisan debate over whether to take high school activism seriously.
by Rebecca Onion via Slate on February 22, 2018
People pose next to a National Park Service sign for the Stonewall National Monument.

Stonewall National Monument Declaration: Annotated

In June 2016, President Obama proclaimed the first LGBTQ+ national monument in the United States at the site of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City.
by Barack Obama, Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on June 24, 2025
Mary Beth Tinker and her mother.
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How Tinker v. Des Moines Established Students’ Free Speech Rights

“The lesson of the Tinker case is: Speak up. Stand up,” Mary Beth Tinker told us.
via Retro Report on March 13, 2025
Students demonstrating against the Shah of Iran, Washington, DC, 1979.
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Indifferent to the Fate of Freedom Elsewhere

Jimmy Carter is known for his defense of human rights worldwide. But in 1979, he threatened to deport thousands of Iranian student protesters.
by Will Teague via HNN on March 11, 2025
Collage of Elon Musk, anti-apartheid protesters, and anti-Musk protesters.

Elon Musk, Apartheid, and America's New Boycott Movement

If you think mass protests can’t combat evil, remember what we did in the 1980s.
by Clara Jeffrey via Mother Jones on February 27, 2025
Protest encampment at University of California Berkeley.

The Free Speech Movement at Sixty and Today’s Unfree Universities

Can speech be free when billionaires buy influence on campus?
by Robert Cohen via Academe on December 4, 2024
Young people running through the streets of Taipei; a middle aged businessman in Houston.

Texas’ Hotbed of Taiwanese Nationalism

For decades, Houston families like mine have helped keep the flame of independence burning.
by Josephine Lee via Texas Observer on November 25, 2024
Protestors at Oxford University, with one holding a sign that reads "End Racism Now."

What Is Decolonisation?

There’s more talk of decolonisation than ever, while true independence for former colonies has faded from view. Why?
by Lydia Walker via Aeon on November 21, 2024
College students studying in a campus lounge.

What the New Right Learned in School

Many of today's most influential right-wing tactics and arguments have their roots in 1960s-era college campuses.
by Emily M. Brooks via Contingent on November 17, 2024
University of California, Los Angeles students protest against Israel's war in Gaza.

Why Do Student Protest Movements Fail?

The uncompromising idealism of student protesters is rooted in social and economic isolation and detachment.
by Paul Baumann via Commonweal on September 27, 2024
Two students holding peace armbands.
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Civics Skills: How the Supreme Court's Tinker Ruling Affects Students

An anti-Vietnam protest that resulted in the Supreme Court confirming that students are persons under the constitution.
via Retro Report on August 22, 2024
SDS protestors parody the Columbia administration's suspension of students in 1968.

Kids These Days

Compared to their 1960s forerunners, today’s young radicals seem far less interested in moving towards responsible adulthood.
by D. G. Hart via Law & Liberty on June 5, 2024
University of California President Clark Kerr giving speech to crowd
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What University Presidents Can Learn From Past Protests

Successes that came when presidents protected student protesters from outside meddling are worth remembering when students return to campus.
by Eddie R. Cole via Made By History on June 4, 2024
Student watching smoke emanating from the student center after 1969 protests.

The CUNY Experiment

The City University of New York has long stood at once for meritocratic uplift and for civil disobedience.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via New York Review of Books on May 23, 2024
A drawing of a Wide Awake march.

These Torchlit Young Marchers Helped to Save American Democracy

They called themselves the Wide Awakes. They are a lesson in building a political movement.
by Jon Grinspan via Washington Post on May 14, 2024
Students in a Kent State University classroom.

Decades After Kent State Shooting, the Tragic Legacy Shapes its Activism

The university where 13 student protesters were killed or injured during the Vietnam War era worries that other schools have learned nothing from its history.
by Jonathan Edwards via Washington Post on May 4, 2024
NYPD officers in riot gear march onto Columbia University campus, where pro-Palestinian students were barricaded inside a building and set up an encampment, on April 30, 2024.

Columbia’s Violence Against Protesters Has a Long History

An overlooked history of selective policing at Columbia has undermined the safety of those within as well as beyond campus walls.
by T. M. Song via The Nation on May 3, 2024
Pro-Palestinian campus protest.
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Why Colleges Don’t Know What to Do About Campus Protests

Despite frequent litigation, U.S. courts have created a blurry line that puts administrators in an impossible situation.
by Jack Hodgson via Made By History on April 29, 2024
Sign reading "Welcome to the People's University for Palestine" at Harvard protest encampment

The Real Scandal of Campus Protest

It’s not that there has been too much student protest. It’s that there has not been much, much more of it.
by Erik Baker via Boston Review on April 25, 2024
Abraham Lincoln campaigning with the Wide Awakes.

The Club of Cape-Wearing Activists Who Helped Elect Lincoln—and Spark the Civil War

The untold story of the Wide Awakes, the young Americans who took up the torch for their antislavery cause and stirred the nation.
by Jon Grinspan via Smithsonian on April 1, 2024
Demonstrators show support for Palestine.

How the ADL’s Anti-Palestinian Advocacy Helped Shape U.S. Terror Laws

Long before 9/11, Zionist groups like the Anti-Defamation League lobbied for counterterror legislation that singled out Palestinians.
by Alice Speri via The Intercept on February 21, 2024
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