Student Activism I
Marchers Declare ‘No to Nixon’ – May 12, 1972
St. Cloud State students are not immune to world events happening around them. Throughout St. Cloud State’s history, students stood up to be heard.
May 12, 1972
Dubbed “Day of Peace,” hundreds of students from St. Cloud State, St. John’s University, and the College of St. Benedict peacefully marched to downtown St. Cloud to protest US President Richard Nixon’s ongoing Vietnam policies.
The 1960s was ripe for movements to change society. The civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, counterculture movements, and political assassinations encouraged students to act. Vietnam was a particularly divisive topic.
Kent State protest, downtown St. Cloud, May 1970
In 1968, St. Cloud State students took to the streets to oppose a stunt to burn a dog with napalm, showed displeasure to former Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell Taylor during a 1968 campus visit, and massed downtown to protest the Kent State shootings of four students in May 1970.
Doug Erickson is led away by police during a protest against the Vietnam War at the Stearns County Courthouse, 1968