"Some of the major mobilizing issues were in the process of being resolved," says Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard '74, now Baker professor of public management at the Kennedy School of Government.

Leonard identifies the military draft as an issue that drove protestors earlier in the decade, but by his senior year, he said, "there wasn't any kind of defining issue that could galvanize in the same way."

Fighting to Protest

But while student apathy seemed to be the rule, there were still members of the class who continued to fight for change.

"There was a lot of idealism that we would be different and we were going to change the world, that we had an obligation to change the world," Piltch says.

Students protested on issues ranging from Watergate to divestment, using a tactics that included leafleting, rallies, sit-ins and taking over University buildings.

In 1972, black students from the Afro and the Pan-African Liberation Committee, two activist groups, took over Mass. Hall and demanded that the University divest from the Gulf Oil Corporation in protest of the company's practices in Angola. John, who was one of the protestors inside the building, says the takeover resulted from students' unsuccessful meetings with stockholders to discuss concerns.

"I think there were about 40 of us in the building," she remembers. "We broke a window to get in."

After the first few days, protestors asked more students to join in surrounding the building, fearing police action. Hundreds of students formed picket lines around the building in response.

"At a certain point it became a real threat. Everybody knew that if the police went in, there would be a whole lot of heads broken," John says. "The guard of students continued through the day and night maybe for about a week."

The students left the building voluntarily after the weeklong protest, although the University did not respond to their demands for divestment.

Other protests did not end so peacefully. Just two days before the 1972 takeover, anti-war demonstrators marched to the Center for International Affairs building on Divinity Avenue in Cambridge. The protestors ransacked the building, breaking windows and causing over $20,000 in damages. A squad of 50 riot police ended the protest by using tear gas to clear the Square of protestors.

While these protests were still making headlines, they were occurring with less frequency and losing the support of students. And according to conventional wisdom, campus activism had become a thing of the past.

"Time [magazine] came out with an issue in 1973 that the student movement was dead, and we had just taken over a building!" John says.

Dividing Lines