STUDENT PROTESTS

UNC-Chapel Hill and the World:  Then and Now

    What is a student rally?  What is a protest?  How and why do students become involved in activist causes?  How have these causes changed from previous generations?  Does this change in causes precipitate a change in styles of activism?  Does any of this matter?  While there may not be any clear answers to these questions, this webpage will try to address some of these basic issues.

    How does a SURGE Anti-War rally in 2002 differ from the Beat Duke parade in 1949?  They both create cohesion within a group by uniting against the "other" (be it Duke or bad governmental policy).  They both are designed to draw attention to the group by disrupting normal activities, and both are even so similar to include or encourage acts of street theater (that is what a float could be called right?).  Yet there is something different, and it is that difference; what distinguishes activism from education and a rally from a protest on college campuses especially here at Chapel Hill.
 

 
UNC Protests Today by Ramzi Ayoub (image left)
Anti-War Rally on Chapel Hill's campus after SURGE Conference, Nov. 3 2002 (courtesy nc.indymedia.org)

UNC Protests in the Past by Bonnie Shaw
Beat Duke Parade ca. 1949 (courtesy NC Collection online)

  Comparisons and Contrasts of Protest Rallies and Conditions in general by Neal Mahoney
UNC Anti-Tuition Rally at a Board of Trustees Meeting (courtesy Daily Tar Heel)

Worldwide Student Protest Rallies Today by William McKinney

Student Protests in Ghoungzhou Province in 1998 (courtesy of China Site)

Group Effort by:  Ramzi Ayoub
                              Neil Mahoney
                              William McKinney
                               Bonnie Shaw