THE BAM response was to call a student strike. A mass demonstration at about 800 students on Thursday after the Regents' ruling ended in a violent confrontation with state and local police. Some windows at the administration building were broken by thrown rocks and police moved in to arrest four persons.

Friday, March 20, was the first full day of the strike. It was marked by the beginnings of an amazing coalition of white student groups pledged totally in support of the BAM demands: International Socialists, SDS, New Mobe, Student Mobilization Committee, Young Democrats, and Phoenix Anarchists formally backed the BAM demands and joined the call for the strike. Women's Liberation and ENACT (Environmental Action) also organizationally backed the strike and the demands, though less formally. The official Student Government Council, the representative student government, voted support for the demands, joined the strike, and gave BAM some $2,200 worth of duplicating materials and supplies.

Leaders of all these groups joined together and formed the Coalition to Support BAM, a group with incredibly broad-based support among the white students. At no time during the twelve day strike did the Coalition make any attempts to lead the strike or take part in the negotiations over the demands. The white students throughout provided the massive manpower and organizational work necessary to shut down the university but let the strike be completely BAM-directed.

Over this first weekend, further support for the BAM position was announced by groups of teaching fellows, all the black faculty, and several other faculty groups, including the New University Conference (mostly young radical faculty), and by the Ann Arbor Tenants' Union. This community support was part of a continuing alliance between black students and the Tenants' Union that had been active in a rent strike in the Ann Arbor area.

By the first part of the next week, the strike was about 50 per cent effective in the LSA student body, but the Regents refused to reconsider their previous decision. Then the disruptions started. On Tuesday, Women's Lib blocked traffic in major intersections in support of BAM. On Wednesday, classrooms in the central part of campus were disrupted by groups of BAM supporters numbering up to 2,000.

Most disruptions involved a group of about twenty demonstrators entering a classroom, asking to be allowed to speak, and preventing the class from continuing its course work. Some were more militant, including a group of about 75 blacks who entered the chemistry building, broke windows and flooded the floor. Throughout the day, student pickets stood in front of the classroom buildings, verbally urging fellow students to stay away. Estimates of the effectiveness of the strike on Wednesday ranged from 90 per cent in the School of Social Work to 60 per cent in the big LSA to ineffectual in the School of Engineering.

By Thursday, the disruptions had become more violent. Numerous classroom buildings were closed down by chanting, banging on improvised noisemakers, butyric acid stink-

bombs, and bomb threats. President Fleming and the Regents held a secret meeting designed to work out ways to meet the demand for a ten per cent commitment to black enrollment.

On Friday, the strike groups added a new ???tic. Student strikers formed picker lines at 4:30 a.m. to dissuade university employees, including dorm food service workers, from reporting to work. All dorm food services were effectively shut down. BAM then supplied free "liberation" food at distribution centers. A modest estimate of the strike's effectiveness at this time was that 15,000 students stayed away from classes. Operating under the slogan. "Open it up or shut it down." BAM and the Coalition had effectively shut down the university. LSA was operating at less than 25 per cent of normal.

MEANWHILE, support for the strike continued to build. The university union of non-academic workers voted support for the BAM demands and the fraternities and sororities began passing petitions pledging support. YAF, on the other hand, called for Fleming's resignation because of "hooliganism unchecked."

Finally, on Friday, BAM and Fleming met in negotiations over the eleven demands. Partly to show good faith in the negotiations and partly because state police had been on campus looking for legal violations. BAM issued a call for a moratorium on picketing and disruptions over the weekend, although the strike was still in effect. To maintain the spirit of the strike during the tactical slowdown. BAM sponsored twice-a-day rallies, which included the singing of improvised lyrics:

I've got a feeling,

I got a feeling, brother

I got a feeling

BAM's going to shut this mother down