2008 Woodie Awards
Memories from A Clarkson Mosaic
Riot of 1969
Matthew Lee
Issue date: 2/4/08 Section: Features
The majority of students at Clarkson have been driven past the point of anger. It is uncommon to walk down a dorm hall during dead week and not hear someone talking about how they hate a professor or punch someone in the face. While violence is no answer to a problem created by schoolwork, it is comforting to know that our predecessors at Clarkson felt the same degree of frustration. In fact, as told in A Clarkson Mosaic, students were driven to the point of rioting. Police had to be called in from neighboring towns.
Early Friday evening, on May 2, 1969, a large crowd of Clarkson students left the Zeta Nu fraternity after a "beer blast." They walked down the balmy streets of Potsdam, toward the downtown area. The students decided to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather, around 7:00 p.m.. They gathered on Market Street, instead of traveling to more bars to continue in the revelry. After a short while, the crowd grew large enough to block off the entire street. This was interfering with the traffic flow, as the estimated 600-700 students and residents wondered the street.
A small group of troublemakers were among the crowd. The mischevious urge spread to the rest of the crowd. Beer bottles and rocks were thrown into the street. Two small rocks penetrated the window of Calipari's Music Store. They marked up a piano that was on display. As the noise and violence became a nuisance, the police from Massena, Norwood, Ogdensburg, Canton, and Gouverneur were called in at 9:00 p.m. to participate in crowd control.
At the stroke of midnight, the police charged the crowd, without any warning, from Raymond Street onto Market Street. They were wielding batons and firing tear gas at the students. Many students were attacked, fleeing and offering no resistance. In one particularly gruesome incident, a Clarkson student was walking his date back to Potsdam State when he stopped to see the commotion. Hit with tear gas, he and his date escaped down an alley where they stopped, gasping for breath.
Early Friday evening, on May 2, 1969, a large crowd of Clarkson students left the Zeta Nu fraternity after a "beer blast." They walked down the balmy streets of Potsdam, toward the downtown area. The students decided to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather, around 7:00 p.m.. They gathered on Market Street, instead of traveling to more bars to continue in the revelry. After a short while, the crowd grew large enough to block off the entire street. This was interfering with the traffic flow, as the estimated 600-700 students and residents wondered the street.
A small group of troublemakers were among the crowd. The mischevious urge spread to the rest of the crowd. Beer bottles and rocks were thrown into the street. Two small rocks penetrated the window of Calipari's Music Store. They marked up a piano that was on display. As the noise and violence became a nuisance, the police from Massena, Norwood, Ogdensburg, Canton, and Gouverneur were called in at 9:00 p.m. to participate in crowd control.
At the stroke of midnight, the police charged the crowd, without any warning, from Raymond Street onto Market Street. They were wielding batons and firing tear gas at the students. Many students were attacked, fleeing and offering no resistance. In one particularly gruesome incident, a Clarkson student was walking his date back to Potsdam State when he stopped to see the commotion. Hit with tear gas, he and his date escaped down an alley where they stopped, gasping for breath.
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