Dr. Moran Weston '30 speaking at the Martin Luther King Memorial Seruice in Columbia's St. Paul's Chapel on April 9, 1968. Et;eryone held hands and sang "We Shall Ot;ercome." But SDS leaders (white) shocked the mourners by disrupting the service to make wild allegations.
Universitv and College officials to enforce the rule against indoor demonstrations. It did. Shortly after, Rudd, SDS vice-chairman Nick Freudenberg, and four members of the SDS steering committee (John Jacobs, Ted Gold, Ed Hyman, and :\10rris Grossner) were asked to come to the College Dean's office to discuss their role in leading the illegal demonstrations. In a brazen move, they refused to do so, and demanded instead "open hearings" of their cases. On April 17, six days before the fateful Tuesday on which the SPRI:-,TG, 1968
turbulence began, and after weeks of attempted talks and an April 12 meeting with SDS leaders on the "neutral" South Field grass, Associate Dean Platt wrote a terse letter to the leaders informing each one that if he did not respond to the Dean's letter and corne to the College office, each would be suspended from Columbia. What really brought ,vIark Rudd to the attention of the University community, though, was his electrifying stunt at Columbia's memorial service for the Rev. Dr. :\'Imtin Luther King, Jr. in St. Paul's chapel on April 9. The University chapel was overflowing with mourners - facultv, administration, and students, including nearly 100 of Columbia's black students. An additional 1,000 professors and students huddled outside the chapel's decorative doors. The feelings of sorrow,
of the stupidity of prejudice and violence were so perv;::sive and profoUJl(J. that hardly anvone spoke. Heads were bowed and eyes moist. The service was somber and stately. After the Rev. Dr. Moran \Veston '30, a Negro and a noted Episcopalian minister in Harlem, read moving passages from Dr. King's writings, everyone in the Chapel, some 1,300 strong, held hands (except Dr. Kirk, who was seated at the rear of ,he chancel) and sang all the verses of "We Shall Overcome." It was an unprecedented act for Columbia's intellectual, unsentimental, non-hymn-singing population. Slowly, Vice President Truman rose to deliver a somber eulogy. Suddenly Mark Rudd, seated in one of the front rows, leapt to his feet. He walked up and seized the microphone, and denounced Dr. Truman's forthcoming speech as "an obscenity," and 11