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Major Events 1967 - 1971

The March on the Pentagon - October 21-23, 1967

LBJ withdrawing from race for re-election - March 31, 1968

Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated - April 4, 1968

Robert F. Kennedy assassinated - June 5, 1968


The Swarthmore team (captain Nancy Bekavac, Mike Hattersley, Bill Holt, and Mike Miller) defeated Colorado College, Augustana, Oklahoma State, Cornell, and finally Case Western Reserve to win the GE College Bowl - Fall 1968 - the winnings were later dedicated to the implementation of a Black Admissions program.

SASS sit-in of Admissions Office - January 9-16, 1969

The Black Liberation 1969 Archive is an incredible resource: blacklib1969.swarthmore.edu/ (will open in a new tab)
See the Forum Discussion to post your reactions.

In the 60 minute 150th Anniversary Video, Minding Swarthmore, more than ten minutes was devoted to 1968-69. The entire video is recommended, but here is a clip that starts at the beginning of the coverage of our time there:

Death of Swarthmore President Courtney Smith - January 16, 1969

Death of Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones - July 3, 1969

First human Moon landing - July 20, 1969

Woodstock - August 15-18, 1969

National Moratorium Against the War - October 15, 1969

Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, Washington, D.C. - November 15, 1969

The first Earth Day - April 22, 1970

Four students killed by National Guardsmen at Kent State - May 4, 1970 (one of the students, Jeff Miller, was a high school classmate and friend of Bob Cushman)

Death of Jimi Hendrix - September 18, 1970

Death of Janis Joplin - October 4, 1970

Break-in of the FBI office in Media - March 8,1971 - Besides Betty Medsger's book, “The Burglary,” there are several relevant videos - Johanna Hamilton's "1971," a documentary based on the book, an interview with Hamilton and Medsger, a CSPAN panel discussion with Medsger and three of the burglars (Bonnie and John Raines, and Keith Forsythe), a 2-part Democracy NOW! panel discussion with Medsger, Forsyth, the Raines, and civil rights lawyer David Kairys (Part 1 and Part 2), a New York Times story, and a Philadelphia Enquirer article on the 50th anniversary of the break-in