“We were constantly producing all these things that were trying to create the illusion that there was this groundswell of support,” Pressman said.

EPIC’s petition to end segregation at Woolworth’s lunch counters similarly caught the public eye, thanks to the signatures of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harvard faculty members such as Arthur M. Schlesinger and Oscar Handlin.

In fact, even a handful of administrators were sympathizers. Anthony “Tony” W. Robbins ’62, one of the models for the Life Magazine photoshoot, said he remembered meeting with Dean of the College John U. Monro ’34 about the legal implications of the pickets.

“After being read the riot act by the Dean, I asked in the most mild and friendly way what he would do,” Robbins said. “He said without missing a beat, ‘I’d go ahead and run the protest.’”

EPIC also provided “a kind of basic training” for those interested in social justice, according to Pressman. Many of the most active EPIC members were involved in later Civil Rights-era events—including the 1964 Freedom Summer—and other movements such as anti-Vietnam War protests. And the legacy of this early student movement, both at Harvard and around the country, provided a framework for the heyday of student engagement.

“This was part of the ice breaking,” Bardacke said. “The ice broke in South Carolina and the ice broke in Nashville. There were a few little cracks at Harvard, too.”

—Staff writer Stephanie B. Garlock can be reached at sgarlock@college.harvard.edu.