The armed seizure of McCardle Hall lasted from before sunset to after sunrise. Three hours into the take-over, I slipped outside to see what was going on. The air was comfortably crisp, sharply contrasting the hot, stuffy, fear-laden atmosphere I’d just left. Alongside the swarm of state troopers, county sheriffs, Springville police and national guardsmen, a growing crowd gathered. I took note of the milling throng then turned my attention back toward the building. At the lowest levels, the lighted windows were framed by late-life leaves of ivy that were quietly rustling in the darkness as the night breeze nudged them back and forth.
Suddenly the ivy changed from sable to chalk, set in caustic relief by a sheer white light. I whirled around to face the source of this starkness. Standing three yards away from me was this trio, a television news crew. One white man, who looked to be in his 40s, held a floodlight and carried a battery pack slung over his shoulder. The other, somewhere around 50, carried a shotgun microphone about three and a half feet long. The two flanked this tall, muscular Black man, shouldering a hefty Mitchell TV camera. Its lens was trained on the side of the building, capturing on film what my eyes had sighted only moments earlier. In the darkness, I caught a glimpse of the half of his face that wasn’t masked by the camera. He couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than I was. I attempted to make eye contact but he looked right past me. He was all business and communicated as much without uttering a word.
After filming the ivy for about 45 seconds, he turned, signaling to his crewmates that he was on the move. The three-man crew shoved and shot its way through the crowd towards the entrance of the building. The floodlight wielded by the electrician caught the many faces of the crowd. The national guardsmen, some of them no older than the students camped out in McCardle Hall, looked nervous but resolute. The state police, wearing their riot helmets with protective plastic visors, were faceless. So were the two-dozen hooded Klansmen gathered just to right of the entrance. Behind them was a group of 30 or so white frat boys. To the left of the glass double door entrances were members of the Black Panther Party and a handful of radical whites from the Students for a Democratic Society.
Other television camera lights began bathing the scene, sparring with the red sweep of the Mars lights straddling the tops of the squad cars. Leaders from each of the anti-establishment groups held an impromptu press conference to let it be known that the authorities had better be prudent. "If the pigs fuck with the Soul, we’re going to fuck up the pigs," a group of Panthers chanted. “We’re going to fuck up the pigs, if the pigs fuck with the soul.”
Everyone seemed set on a violent ending. Members of the KKK were egging on the Troopers and Guardsmen to “go in there and teach them niggers a lesson. This is the white man’s school in the white man’s country.”
The rag tag band of SDSers fired off catcalls at the Klansmen, the cops, the guardsmen, the Greeks, the University administration, the professors and anyone and anything else that they could think of associated with the establishment.
“The only good capitalist is a dead capitalist,” one shouted. “Kill the capitalist,” another shouted.
As a credentialed member of the media, I was in and out. I talked to my brothers leading the takeover, quickly writing down the list of the 10 non-negotiable demands as if I was hearing it for a first time. I interviewed the captive school administrators and faculty, noting their outrage, sadness and unease as the events unfolded. I interviewed spectators, protesters and law enforcement officers on the outside as they wondered and worried about what was going on inside.
I scurried back and forth throughout the night. Past Steve and Sam as they stood armed, guarding the doors. Past the police and national guardsmen as they stood armed, anxiously awaiting orders to storm the building. Through the ranks of the probing reporters, photographers and camera crews who were outside working the story, demanding I give them some account of what was going on inside. I deferred. I was only a student-employee of the PSUIA. Bob Madden would give them a full report after it was all over.
Comments