Mỹ Lai 9 - Students Protests Poem by Unnikrishnan Sivasankara Menon

Hamilton Hall, Columbia University was the first that hundreds of students seized in April 1968 during protests over the Vietnam War and racism. Students barricaded themselves inside, preventing the acting dean, Henry S. Coleman, from leaving his office for one night.

As demonstrators used furniture to keep Mr. Coleman inside, protesters who were part of an African American student group asked white students in the building to leave. That created a separate protest for Black students, as the white students went on to demonstrate in other buildings on campus.

A week later, the police entered the building through underground tunnels and cleared the students. Police officers trampled protesters, hit them with nightsticks and dragged some down concrete steps. More than 700 people were arrested.