52 years ago this fall, students at Fordham University in The Bronx, New York seized the administration building and demanded throwing the U.S. military’s ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) off campus. This student occupation was led by the Worker-Student Alliance faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and was a part of the worldwide anti-imperialist struggle involving many millions against U.S. imperialism.
Knowing that reform orgnizations like SDS will never truly liberate the working class, the key force behind this worker-student alliance, was the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP). We continue to organize and fight back against racism to this day. The lessons learned by the inspiring fightback at Fordham are a manual for students and workers everywhere organizing to take student-worker unity all the way to communist revolution!`
Fordham SDS: baptism through struggle
Fordham is a Catholic school and had traditionally been a conservative place, with an openly fascist student group in the 1930s supporting fascists during the Spanish Civil War. By the mid-60s, it became more liberal, with Fordham students picketing the nearby Woolworths department store for supporting racial segregation in the U.S. south.
Fordham SDS was started in 1965/66 and was militant from the start. By 1968, the Fordham chapter had become influenced by the PLP-led Worker Student Alliance faction of SDS. Increasingly larger and more forceful demonstrations during the next two years opposed Navy recruiters and Dow Chemical, makers of the horrible weapon napalm (jellied gasoline) which was used by the U.S. military against the Vietnamese. The action against Dow Chemical involved hundreds of students shoving campus guards and recruiters with their table, chairs and literature down the hall and down flights of stairs. We also demonstrated against Marine recruiters. For years, we held many forums, workshops and had many late-night conversations in the dorms.
Students ignite rebellion within U.S. imperialism
ROTC, which trains college students to become junior officers in the military, is an integral part of the U.S. military's war machine. The sight of cadets marching around the college grounds was juxtaposed to the horrors being imposed on the Vietnamese workers we saw on TV every night. Among the thousands of students at Fordham, anger and anti-imperialist solidarity with the Vietnamese workers combined with militant political leadership finally boiled over.
On November 12, 1969, hundreds of students smashed into the administration building and kicked out the president and his flunkies. Barricades were built against the doors with file cabinets as student government representatives tried to negotiate our surrender of the building. Then the administration launched the beefed-up Campus Guards against our barricades. For several hours we fought them off. Late in the evening, we learned that the administration had called in the NYPD. We decided to fight our way out and the best exit seemed to be a window onto the porch. More than 60 of us burst out into a wild melee of at least 20 fist fights going on with the guards outside. Meanwhile, hundreds of students streamed out of the dorms to support and protect us. Several students were grabbed and handed over to the NYPD when they arrived. One was freed by the demonstrators. We then marched up the avenue about a half a mile to the police precinct where the students were being held, demanding their release. We were met by a large contingent of a heavily armed Tactical Patrol Force and were forced to retreat.
Mass base defends students, exposes bosses
26 students were eventually charged, and all but five took a plea deal. Those who didn’t included two members of PLP, and another Worker Student Alliance student. Over the next several months we organized against the bosses’ legal system, turning the case around, and exposing the role of the bosses’ judicial system within the capitalist state. Finally, because of mass support, the students involved were given a slap on the wrist.
The following spring, we continued the fight against ROTC and continued building a strong campus Worker Student Alliance movement. We especially organized support for the cafeteria workers and helped them fight to prevent their being screwed by a new sub-contractor.
Build a base in the working class
Over the past 20 years, we have had several reunions from those days. The largest was two years ago, on the 50th anniversary, when almost 40 participants and friends reunited near Fordham. Some of these attendees became lifelong communists.
The fightback at Fordham shows the power of communist ideas when grasped by masses of students and workers. Against a worldwide backdrop of millions of workers, hundreds at Fordham demonstrated their willingness to fight back against imperialism and support the occupation. Despite the bosses using their state power and police to end it, this mass base followed the students’ militant leadership and defended them in the aftermath, and many remain committed to antiracist, anti-imperialist struggle decades later.
The documentary Fordham SDS was made from film footage taken during the November 12 takeover by a brave comrade who was also a filmmaker, while another brave comrade smuggled the footage out of the building. This documentary is a class in student-worker organizing. As the bosses of the U.S., China and Russia look to today’s youth as cannon fodder for World War III, PLP continues building student-worker unity to smash this entire imperialist system with communist revolution once and for all.