Research Catalog

Title

Christiane C. Collins collection of the West Harlem Coalition for Morningside Park and Urban Problems of the Contiguous Communities: West Harlem, Manhattan Valley, Morningside Heights and Manhattanville.

Author

Collins, Christiane Crasemann

Supplementary Content

Finding Aid

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

13 lin. ft.

Summary

The Christiane C. Collins Collection documents the origins, demonstrations and aftermath of the Columbia University student protest in the spring of 1968 and events through 1970. The collection focuses on the convergence of student activism and black community concerns as they relate to urban planning, gentrification and institutional racism, and the neglect of scarce natural resources in black neighborhoods. In particular, the material documents the relationship between student and local activists and their unity against Columbia's proposed construction of a new gymnasium in Morningside Park and building expansion in Morningside Heights, as well as other issues in Harlem.

Donor/Sponsor

Schomburg NEH Archival Resources for the Study of the Post-Civil Rights Movements Project.

Subject

• Columbia University
• Columbia University > Administration
• Columbia University > Strikes
• Columbia University > Students
• Columbia University. Urban Center
• Black Panther Party
• Students for a Democratic Society (U.S.)
• Morningside Park Association
• Architects' Renewal Committee in Harlem (New York, N.Y.)
• West Harlem Coalition for Morningside Park
• Student movements > New York (State) > New York
• Students > Political activity
• Student strikes > New York (State) > New York
• Teacher-student relationships > New York (State) > New York
• Teacher participation in administration > New York (State) > New York
• Universities and colleges > New York (State) > New York
• New York (N.Y.) > Race relations
• Campus planning > New York (State) > New York
• Urban renewal > New York (State) > New York
• Morningside Heights (N.Y.)
• Morningside Park (New York, N.Y.)

Note

• Photographs transferred to Photographs and Prints Division.
• Audiotapes transferred to Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division.

Source (note)

• Collins, Christiane Crasemann

Biography (note)

• The Christiane C. Collins Collection of the West Harlem Coalition for Morningside Park and Urban Problems of the Contiguous Communities: West Harlem, Manhattan Valley, Morningside Heights and Manhattanville documents Columbia University's expansionist plans in Manhattan's Morningside Heights and Morningside Park, and subsequent protests on the part of the community and students in the 1960's and 1970's. The collection was gathered by Christiane Crasemann Collins with assistance from her husband, Columbia University Professor George Collins, long-time residents and activists in Morningside Heights.

Processing Action (note)

• Processed
• Cataloged

Call Number

Sc MG 299

OCLC

NYPW02-A176

Author

Collins, Christiane Crasemann, collector.

Title

Christiane C. Collins collection of the West Harlem Coalition for Morningside Park and Urban Problems of the Contiguous Communities: West Harlem, Manhattan Valley, Morningside Heights and Manhattanville.

Biography

The Christiane C. Collins Collection of the West Harlem Coalition for Morningside Park and Urban Problems of the Contiguous Communities: West Harlem, Manhattan Valley, Morningside Heights and Manhattanville documents Columbia University's expansionist plans in Manhattan's Morningside Heights and Morningside Park, and subsequent protests on the part of the community and students in the 1960's and 1970's. The collection was gathered by Christiane Crasemann Collins with assistance from her husband, Columbia University Professor George Collins, long-time residents and activists in Morningside Heights.

Between 1947 and 1972 residents of Morningside Heights and surrounding neighborhoods formed a variety of organizations designed to either improve the quality of life in those communities or to prevent Columbia University and the other large institutions in the area, including St. Luke's Hospital and Jewish Theological Seminary, from destroying the multiracial and diversified socioeconomic character of the neighborhood. Columbia University was perceived as creating the greatest threat to the neighborhood, as the plan to expand its campus by purchasing scores of buildings in the immediate vicinity of the main campus resulted in the eviction of hundreds of tenants and the demolition of several buildings.

Although there was significant opposition to two of Columbia's larger construction projects in Morningside Heights, the East Campus Dormitory Complex and the Pharmacy Site, it was the proposed construction of a gymnasium within publicly owned Morningside Park that led to the greatest amount of friction between Columbia and the neighborhood. The gym site became a symbol of the community's resistance to the University's expansion, and a rallying point for students already challenging Columbia's role in U.S. government military research on new weapons, as well as the training of officers through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC).

A wide spectrum of black organizations ranging from radical groups such as the United Black Front and the New York chapter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to the more moderate West Harlem Community Organization and tenant groups also opposed the gym, and in April 1968 participated in a major rally organized by the Harlem chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality. The rally's participants protested institutional expansion in Morningside Heights and Harlem, and Columbia's refusal to permit community participation in the allocation of a $10 million urban grant from the Ford Foundation to the University which was used to establish a Center for Urban Minority Affairs.

Events, beginning in February 1968 when activists and students blocked the demolition of parkland on the site where the gym was to be built, culminated in the Columbia University student strike in April 1968, led by the University's Students' Afro-American Society and the radical Students for a Democratic Society headed by Mark Rudd. According to the Columbia Student Strike Coordinating Committee, the goal of the strike was the struggle for self-determination for students and the residential community. By the end of April, about a thousand black and white students as well as community members representing a wide variety of activist organizations were involved in the strike and occupation of five buildings. The strike was ended several days later when the University called on the police to forcibly remove students from the occupied buildings. Several hundred students were arrested and scores injured. A fact-finding commission was formed to investigate the campus disturbances. Chaired by Archibald Cox, Professor of Law at Harvard University, the Commission's report criticized Columbia's administration, but did not indict those empowered with setting the philosophy and policies of Columbia as strongly as many considered necessary to bring about basic changes.

In 1969 and 1970 a variety of issues galvanized the community and students to oppose Columbia's policies; some were strictly University-related issues, others had far broader ramifications. There were demonstrations for open admissions to Columbia University for black, Latino and white students from local high schools; community oriented urban renewal plans; and the abolition of the NROTC, military recruiting and military research. There were also demonstrations by students and community residents against the operation of a University-owned nuclear reactor, TRIGA Mark II, in their densely populated neighborhood, as well as protests against the United States government's oppression of political dissidents, including a demand for the release of political prisoners such as members of the Black Panther Party, and against U.S. involvement in Vietnam, culminating in two nationwide strikes in April and May of 1970 and the outcry against the killing of the students at Kent State University.

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Finding Aid

Research Call Number

Sc MG 299