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The Columbia Coalition: African Americans, New Leftists, and Counterculture at the Columbia University Protest of 1968

The Columbia University protest of 1968 marked the loudest and most widely noted American student protest in a year distinguished by such unrest. This article reframes the protest through the lens of movement culture and analyzes the ties between different social movements. Activists at Columbia were a motley coalition of Harlemites and students, political and cultural radicals, black and white. This article argues that the establishment of five communes in occupied campus buildings facilitated the temporary reconciliation of political and social difference that accounts for the formation of the Columbia coalition. The tight confines within each commune sparked intense political and cultural debate but also forced activists to recognize the legitimacy of other views in the name of commune solidarity. The creation of multiple communes, however, allowed for several protest factions—including a black separatist group—to coexist under a single banner. The Columbia coalition provided a fleeting moment of unity during a period characterized by black separatism, white student radicalization, and counterculture flight to rural communes.