Look Back: Wash U unrest, 1970 | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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Look Back: Wash U unrest, 1970

Date: 4/29/2011 Album ID: 1236917

Photos by Post-Dispatch staff photographers and files

by Tim O'Neil --- During the Vietnam War in the spring of 1970, Washington University and the ROTC had been a flashpoint for a year. A mysterious arson had already destroyed the Army building, and protesters taunted ROTC students during drills and tried to disrupt their classes. At Kent State University near Akron, Ohio, National Guard soldiers confronted 1,000 angry protesters at midday on May 4. Troops leveled their rifles. Four students were killed, 11 wounded. At Washington University, trouble moved toward the surviving Air Force ROTC building. Shortly after midnight, as 2,500 students chanted "Kent State" from a hilltop, about 30 rushed the building, ransacked it and set it ablaze.

The Washington University Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) buildings in May 1969. The Army building is on the right, with missile and howitzer. At left is the Air Force building. Both were just southeast of Big Bend and Millbrook boulevards. In 1969 and 1970, anti-war protesters tried to get the programs abolished or moved off campus. On Feb. 23, 1970, the Army ROTC building was destroyed in a mysterious arson fire. Another fire set during a violent protest on May 5, 1970, gutted the Air Force building. That happened about 12:30 a.m. at the end of angry demonstrations in reaction to the killings the day before of four students by National Guard soldiers at Kent State University near Akron, Ohio. Six former Washington University students eventually were found guilty of charges stemming from the riot and fire here, although one defendant was acquitted in a retrial. The Washington University and St. Louis University ROTC programs later operated from a building on Forest Park Avenue in St. Louis. Today, the Army ROTC has programs on Washington University's north campus, north of Delmar Boulevard, and the Air Force ROTC programs are at St. Louis University. (Post-Dispatch)

Washington University students march west on Forsyth Boulevard from campus to the St. Louis County Courthouse on March 30, 1970, to show support for a former student who had been arrested during a demonstration the week before. (Renyold Ferguson/Post-Dispatch)

Washington University students wear signs with the names of university trustees during a mock trail on March 31, 1970, outside Shepley Hall. The event was part of a continuing opposition to the presence of ROTC on campus. Protesters burned two trustees in effigy. Participants have red paint on their hands to signify the blood spilled in the Vietnam War. (Lynn T. Spence/Post-Dispatch)

Two St. Louis County police officers, one holding a wooden stake, observe a demonstration near the Air Force ROTC building at Washington University on April 15, 1970. About 300 students marched to the building, where some students broke windows by throwing rocks. A female student suffered a cut to her head by a rock, and detective John Rosenthal was knocked unconscious by a thrown object. Some students also threw smoke bombs and firecrackers at police. (Fred Sweets/Post-Dispatch)

Lorena Tinker tries to take a camera from Sgt. Wayne Jeffords during a demonstration outside the Air Force ROTC building at Washington University on April 23, 1970. Tinker was part of a mothers' march against the ROTC, the Vietnam War and the military in general. Jeffords had offered to take group shots. Tinker and others, apparently not amused, grabbed for his camera. The demonstrators, many of whom brought their children, called for turning the ROTC building into a day-care center. (Lester Linck/Post-Dispatch)

The demonstration at Washington University turns violent at 12:30 a.m. May 5, when some of the protesters move toward the Air Force ROTC building. Protesting had begun here on May 4 after the news bulletins from Kent State. Late that night, it moved to a hill overlooking the Air Force ROTC building, where about 2,500 students chanted Kent State. After midnight, about 30 students ran down the hill, ransacked the ROTC building and set it ablaze. This photo was taken shortly before the fire broke out. (Post-Dispatch)

Another view of the gathering at the building as the fire began. (Lloyd Spainhower/Post-Dispatch)

Firefighters call for help from police as they are pelted with rocks while trying to fight the fire. The University City and Clayton firefighters had to retreat while police waited to assemble a sufficient riot squad. (Lloyd Spainhower/Post-Dispatch)

The ROTC building being gutted by fire. (Lloyd Spainhower/Post-Dispatch)

Firefighters outside the blaze. (Lynn T. Spence/Post-Dispatch)

Students walk past the ruins of the Air Force ROTC building on the morning after the riot and fire. (Lester Linck/Post-Dispatch)

After Kent State, students at many campuses called for boycotts of classes for the rest of the semester. Here, St. Louis University student Ray West urges his fellow students to strike during a rally on May 11, 1970. (Lou Phillips/Post-Dispatch)

Howard Mechanic (center, holding book) in a hallway of the federal courthouse downtown during a break in a hearing on June 8, 1970. Mechanic, a student at Washington University, was accused of violating the federal anti-riot law for allegedly throwing a cherry bomb at police and firefighters during the violence at the ROTC building. Mechanic, 22, was from Cleveland. He was convicted on Oct. 22, 1970, and sentenced a week later to five years in federal prison. After his appeals were denied, he jumped bail and went underground in May 1972 rather than surrender to begin serving his time. Mechanic made his way to Arizona, where he lived for almost three decades under the alias Gary Tredway of Scottsdale. His secret unraveled in 2000 when he briefly was a candidate for Scottsdale City Council and had to admit to a local newspaper that he had lied about his birthplace, family and education. In September 2000, he pleaded guilty of failing to appear for his sentence and was sentenced to four months, to run concurrent with his delayed five-year term from 1972. He was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in January 2001. (Renyold Ferguson/Post-Dispatch)

Former Washington University student Joel Achtenberg with his father, Irving, at their home in Kansas City in August 1973 after the son was acquitted in a retrial on charges of participating in the ROTC riot. Achtenberg was convicted in May 1971 of violating a federal anti-sabotage law during the riot and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Eleven months later, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial. Achtenberg was 26 when he was acquitted in a retrial in the federal courthouse in St. Louis. (Post-Dispatch)

Howard Mechanic attending a forum on the state of campus activism at Washington University's Alumni House in April 2001, after he was released from federal prison by President Clinton. With him that day were some of his fellow anti-war activists during college days in 1970. (Kevin Manning/Post-Dispatch)

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