Editor's note

Fifty years ago this week, pictures from the violent clashes outside the Democratic Party’s convention in Chicago shocked – and divided – Americans across the country. 1968 was not only a year of rebellion and student protests but also of reaction: in November Richard Nixon won the White House on a campaign to restore “law and order.”

Today, to mark the 50th anniversary of 1968, we launch our first podcast series, “Heat and Light.” In conversation with journalist Phillip Martin, historians tell the story of six key but lesser-known events from that tumultuous year – what happened, why it still reverberates today and why they, as scholars, have devoted their careers to studying the 1960s. From the students who challenged their schools’ military connections and the tortured setup of American TV’s first interracial kiss, to the beginning of the end of the “traditional” American family. What was just heat? What brought light, too? Subscribe to Heat and Light here!

And if you want some reading material to complement your listening on 1968, our historian-interviewees have got you covered.

African-American studies scholar Stefan Bradley dives into the detail of the Columbia University protests of April 1968 that started when black Harlem residents objected to the construction of a new university gym and ended up making world headlines. And historian of conservatism, Natasha Zaretsky, writes of arriving with some trepidation, as the daughter of San Francisco leftists, on a Midwestern campus 15 years ago where her students grew up on church, patriotism and traditional family. Yet instead of ideological barricades, there was empathy and learning.

Maria Balinska

Editor and Co-CEO

Top stories

Black power militant H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael (right) appeared at a sit-in protest at Columbia University in New York City on April 26, 1968. AP

1968 protests at Columbia University called attention to ‘Gym Crow’ and got worldwide attention

Stefan M. Bradley, Loyola Marymount University

The 1968 protests at Columbia University led the institution to abandon a gym project that residents considered racist and cut off its defense work – and generated worldwide attention in the process.

The poor treatment of Vietnam War veterans, many of whom had PTSD, angered Natasha Zaretsky’s Midwestern students. REUTERS/Mike Theiler

Red-state politics in and out of the college classroom

Natasha Zaretsky, Southern Illinois University

A scholar raised by leftist San Francisco parents in the 1970s ends up teaching in the heartland, where her students represent a very different kind of politics. What she learns from them is profound.

Heat and Light podcast

Listen to our new podcast to hear insights from these scholars and others. Six episodes will help explain what events of 50 years ago were just heat, and what brought light, too.

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    J. Vijay Maharaj, The University of the West Indies: St. Augustine Campus

    Author V.S. Naipaul, who died on Aug. 11, both scorned and mirrored his Caribbean origins. At the University of the West Indies, students must reconcile this conflicted titan's literary legacy.

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Monica G. Turner