Bona's looks back: life in the 1960s
Amanda Klein
Issue date: 5/1/09 Section: Features
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Assistant Features Editor
The 1960s was an era of change in the United States. Social and political movements were on the rise, and even Bonaventure students were caught up in it.
"There were a lot of things going on in those times," Peggy Burke, '69, dean of the school of education, said. "You had the Civil Rights Movement coming up, you had the women's movement, you had an anti-war movement. That particular time period was right at the intersection of those three, and the students here were involved in it. It was an exciting time."
Bonaventure even had its own chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a national student organization on college campuses across the country that protested the Vietnam War.
"They were burning campuses and taking over campuses across the United States in protest of the war," Burke said.
To students not involved with the SDS, the group appeared problematic.
"They seemed to be free-wheeling and very liberal," Robert Crowley, '71, said. "It seemed to me they were causing problems. I remember a sit-in on the steps of Hopkins."
The students sat on the steps of Hopkins in 1968 to protest the university president's treatment of poet Allan Ginsberg, who was supposed to speak on campus, according to the July 31, 1968 edition of the Courier Express.
The president, the Very Rev. Reginald Redlon, O.F.M., said Ginsberg's reported behavior did not coincide with the goals of the university, according to the July 31, 1968 edition of the Courier Express.
In May of 1969, the university president banned the SDS chapter on campus, labeling it as anti-Christian, anti-democratic and anti-American. He also said the organization opposed ideals the university upholds, according to the May 16, 1969, edition of The Bona Venture.
"You could tell he was stressed out during that time period," Crowley said. "(But) he still allowed freedom to the students."
Although some students supported the president, the members of the SDS were not completely at fault.
"I couldn't blame the kids, though," Marv Stocker,'65, said. "It was a horrible war, and to think you might get shot up over there, it was a tough time."
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