Website Search
Find information on spaces, staff, and services.
1970-1979
January 2-4, 1970
On January 2, vandals cause $1,300 in damages to the Army Reserve Center on Park Street.
On January 3, a firebomb causes $20,000 in damages to the Red Gym.
On January 4, the Primate Lab is firebombed.
Other attacks during this week target the Dane County Selective Service Board, the ROTC building, the Racine County Selective Service Board, and the Army ammunition plant near Baraboo, Wisconsin.
February 12, 1970
2,500 people march from Library Mall toward the Engineering Building to protest GE recruiters on campus (photo below). When met by police, the crowd rampages through State Street and University Avenue breaking windows.
Listen to Oral History Clips below.
February 19, 1970
Over 1,000 people rampage around campus breaking windows and confronting police, after five members of the Chicago Seven are convicted of crossing state lines to incite riots.
The Chicago Seven had been arrested during protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
March-April 1970
The Teaching Assistants Association (TAA) calls a strike on March 15 over collective bargaining issues with the university. The strike lasts through early April, when the TAA accepts the University’s contract offer.
While results of the strike are mixed, TAA does win recognition and exclusive representation and bargaining rights for TAs, more job security and a clearer grievance process.
TAA Strike on campus, Abe Lincoln statue on Bascom Hill. 
TAA Strike on campus
Listen to Oral History Clips below.
Visit the Campus Voices page on the TAA Strike for more information.
early May 1970
The killing of students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State (OH) and Jackson State (MS) spark a week of protests and violence on campus, including several firebombings.
The National Guard is again called to campus and uses tear-gas against protesters.
Campus Crusade, First Aid flier 
Students dodge tear gas on campus.
May 1970
Following bombs being found in Memorial Library, the Association of Student Library Workers strike in protest over the rising violence on campus.
July 26, 1970
The power substation, reservoir, and telephone exchange at Camp McCoy, near Sparta, Wisconsin, are damaged by explosions. Three soldiers, Tom Chase, Steve Geden, and Daniel Kreps, are accused of the bombings.
Rallies are held intermittently on campus in support of the three until they are given 18 month sentences in March 1973.
Camp McCoy protest 
Free Political Prisoners flier
August 24, 1970
The New Year’s Gang led by Karl Armstrong and three other protesters, bombs Sterling Hall in an attempt to blow up the Army Mathematics Research Center. Robert Fassnacht, a postdoctoral fellow in physics working in the building, is killed.
Over $2.7 million of damage is done to at least 6 buildings. The bombing marks a turning point in the protests on the Madison campus.
Sterling Hall bombing 
Sterling Hall bombing
Listen to Oral History Clips below.
Visit the Campus Voices page on the Sterling Hall Bombing and library research guide on the bombing for more information.
November 1970
The contracts of UW English Department assistant professors David Siff, Frank Battaglia, and Irving Saposnik are not renewed. Many feel the decision is based on their close association with the student movement.
Listen to Oral History Clips below.
February 13, 1971
The Wisconsin Student Association, United Front, and Madison Area Peace Action Council sponsor an indoor anti-war rally at the Camp Randall Memorial Building (the Shell).
Over 2,500 people attend and afterward attempt to march to the capitol, but most are stopped by police.
February 17, 1971
A small silent peace vigil is held on Library Mall.
March 24, 1971
Vets for Peace In Vietnam march at the 5th Army Intelligence offices on East Doty Street in Madison.
March 1971
Protests occur over the use of non-union lettuce at Memorial Union and local eating establishments.
The protests are part of a multi-year conflict between Cesar Chavez‘s AFL-CIO United Farm Workers Organizing Committee and the Teamsters Union.
April 5, 1971
The annual Mifflin Street block party turns violent with clashes between students and police.
May 5, 1971
Students and police are involved in a melee during demonstrations marking the anniversary of the Kent State killings.
March 20, 1972
An estimated 3,000 students demonstrate, boycott businesses, and clash with police in a 10-hour protest over making the lower part of State Street into a mall.
April 19, 1972
Police use tear-gas to disperse a crowd of approximately 1,500 at the Capital protesting the escalation of bombing in North Vietnam.
April-May, 1972
The Memorial Union Labor Organization calls a strike over minimum shift length and work week. The strike concludes with an agreement on May 27.
May 1, 1972
Students participate in a marijuana “smoke-out” and protest march sponsored by the Youth International Party (Yippies).
May 1-10, 1972
Huge crowds of around 10,000 march from Library Mall to the Capitol to protest US mining of North Vietnamese harbors and continued bombing.
Strike flier 
June 19-21, 1972
Students protest the Mathematics Research Center’s conference on population dynamics, which many see as an expansion of military related research on campus.
January 20, 1973
Around 1,500 people march from campus to the Capitol on the eve of President Nixon’s 2nd inauguration, accompanied by Madison Police Chief David Couper.
March 9, 1973
Students participate in a support rally for Native American protesters at Wounded Knee, who occupied the town from February 27 to May 8, 1973.
Clyde Bellecourt, a founder of the American Indian Movement, would later speak on campus about the stand off on November 13.
March 10, 1973
Students participate in a rally as part of several days of events around International Women’s Day.
Womens Day rally 
Womens Day rally
September 11, 1973
Students participate in a protest at the headquarters of the state Work Incentive (WIN) program, which they say forces women on welfare to work for low wages rather than care for their families.
September 13, 1973
400 students demonstrate against US involvement in the military coup in Chile, during which President Salvador Allende died.
late September 1973
Students protest the closing of the Afro-American and Native American Cultural Centers and support new centers for Latinos and Asian Americans. Protests include a call for a one day boycott of classes on September 17.
October 15, 1973
A group of students perform guerrilla theater outside the Dane County Courthouse, where a sentence mitigation hearing for Karl Armstrong begins.
February 28, 1974
After an all-male committee denied tenure to Assistant Professor Joan Roberts, womens groups and supporters protested, barricading exits from the room and burning an effigy of tenure evaluation chairman Professor Jurgen Herbst.
September 9, 1974
Approximately 2,000 gather to protest the pardon of former President Richard Nixon by President Gerald Ford after Nixon’s resignation in the face of likely impeachment.
October 1, 1974
After the First Wisconsin National Bank of Madison increases checking fees for people with “insufficient” balances, 75 students partake in the “Take Your Money and Run” demonstration, withdrawing their money and burning checkbooks in the bank’s lobby. In the street, students burn an effigy of the building.
“Take Your Money and Run” demonstration 
“Take Your Money and Run” demonstration
February 6, 1976
Protests begin over the killings of 2 Menominee tribal members on February 2 by Menominee County Sheriff Kenneth Fish, after officers responded to a domestic complaint at the home of one of the men. Demonstrations include a march to the State Capitol.
July 3-18, 1977
The 24,000 member Wisconsin State Employees Union (WSEU) holds a 15-day strike, supported by students.
WSEU strike 
WSEU strike
June 1978
Students protest against the ruling in the Supreme Court case Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. The ruling established that race could not be the sole factor governing academic admissions.
November 17, 1978
Around 200 students, many of whom are Iranian, protest against the Shah and US involvement in Iran.
November 16, 1979
The Madison Committee Against the Backlash (MCOB), which supports the Iranian anti-Shah students who took over the American embassy in Tehran and are holding American diplomats hostage, holds a rally.
The 600 plus attendees are fairly evenly split between MCOB supporters, and anti-Iranian protesters.
March 13, 1979
At the Orpheum Theater on State Street, students hand out anti-nuclear literature at showings of The China Syndrome, a movie about safety cover-ups at a nuclear power plant.
July 13-15, 1979
Students hand out pro-nuclear power literature at the Capitol on the last day of a three-day series of events called Nukewatch.
The event was sponsored by The Progressive magazine and the Madison Press Connection, after the Three Mile Island incident and censorship of an article in The Progressive about secrecy around the government’s nuclear weapons program.
Pro-Nuke protest 
Nukewatch event
