University of Michigan to host teach-in celebration

ANN ARBOR (AP) - The University of Michigan will host an event to celebrate the 50th anniversary of a teach-in protest of the Vietnam War.

The first-of-its-kind protest was held March 24, 1965, with 12 hours of lectures, workshops and other sessions on the Ann Arbor campus. The Detroit Free Press reports 3,000 students took part in the all-night protest.

Faculty members had originally planned a work stoppage, but opted for the teach-in protest instead. The Ann Arbor News reports the model was used for protests in the following days at schools including Michigan State University, Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley.

This year's teach-in will take place Friday and Saturday with a focus on climate change and possible solutions. Many people who attended the 1965 teach-in plan to be there, including Alan Haber, co-founder of activist group Students for a Democratic Society.

"There was a lot of urgency, excitement, gladness that people were awake and engaged. There were a lot of people talking to one another," Haber told the Free Press. "It was buzz, buzz, buzz all the time. People forget now the urgency, the desperation of the time."

Scheduled events for this year's teach-in include speeches by activist and historian Tom Hayden and "Democracy Now!" host Amy Goodman. William Gamson, a professor who helped organize the 1965 teach-in, is also scheduled to speak.

The University of Michigan, which celebrates its bicentennial in 2017, is offering classes about courses about campus history, including the 1960s anti-war movement.

Published: Thu, Mar 26, 2015