UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Interview #1384
SCHACHNER, JEFFREY

SCHACHNER, JEFFREY (1948-)
Undergraduate student
At UW: 1966-70

Interviewed: 	2014 (May 6, 2014)
Interviewer: 	Troy Reeves
Index by: 	Stephen A. Pierce
Length: 	59 minutes
Series:		Vietnam Era at UW-Madison

Abstract: In his May 2014 interview with Troy Reeves, Jeffrey Schachner details his remembrances of his undergraduate years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with special reference to his activism with SDS during the Dow Riot and the Black Students’ Strike of 1969.  Schachner expressed his deep concern that the strike be remembered as a pivotal part of the larger civil rights movement of the 1960s, and contextualized many of the key participants in these events.  This interview was conducted for inclusion into the UW-Madison Oral History Program.

Key Words: University of Wisconsin-Madison; John Coatsworth; Paul Soglin; University Community Action Party (UCA); Dow Chemical riot (1967); “The War at Home”; Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); National Student Association; Volunteer in Service to America (VISTA); “Black Thursday” (Oshkosh Black Students’ demonstra-tion); Willie Edwards; Nathan Hare; Wapinduzi Weusi; Black Students’ Strike (1969); Kent State University protests; Revolutionary Youth Movement.

First Interview Session (May 6, 2014): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction

00:00:55	Question: Talk about what brought you to Madison. Answer: Schachner explained how, after graduating from a suburban Long Island NY high school in 1966, he was accepted to UW. Within the first three weeks, he said, a dorm-mate took him to meet John Coatsworth and Paul Soglin, who interviewed him about his HS activism and immediately put him to work in the student movement at UW.

00:04:52	Question: Had you decided on a major? Classes? Answer: He didn’t declare a major until his sophomore year—he found 19th century German philosophy classes to be challenging intellectually, but French classes were his greatest challenge early on.

00:06:40	Question: What was protest like on campus when you came? Answer: He expressed the shock he felt when certain radical elements shouted down Senator Ted Kennedy, sketching out the politics of the “Trotskyites” and other groups. But he noted that UCA won every seat in the first student government elections.

00:08:52	Question: Talk about the Dow riot. Answer: He explained that when the police came in, he was arm in arm with Paul Soglin, and again expressed his dismay at how many people were hurt in the riot.

00:10:56	Question: The draft? Answer: Schachner explained that, even before the draft was issued with student deferments, he’d signed a “We Won’t Go” statement which he described as a conscious act of civil disobedience. Radicalized by the Dow Riot, he said, he joined SDS and participated in organizing responses to the Dow incident.

00:13:52	Question: Sophomore year? Answer: He quipped about living above “Burgerville,” sharing rooms with a rabbinical student and another victim of Dow. He went on to talk about key places of social life on campus at the time—a billiards parlor, Gino’s, and the Rathskellar. 

00:15:27	[no question] Responding to the interviewer’s follow up about the Rathskellar, he talked about being recruited there in 1968 to the National Student Association, a cross-collegiate student government group that was trying to counter rioting and met for training the weekend after the Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination. NSA was later revealed to be a CIA front.

00:18:25	Question: The first two summers? Answer: He had applied to be a VISTA volunteer, which he thought would take him to a ghetto area, but he ended up working with migrant farm workers 60 miles from his hometown on Long Island. Follow up: You were there when R. Kennedy was assassinated? Answer: No; he was finishing up final exams at the time.

00:20:54	Question: Fall of 1968? Answer: He explained how they rented a house on W. Wilson Street, which he described glowingly as being in a “regular neighborhood.” 

00:22:42	Question: What classes were you taking? Answer: He related one former professor being disappointed that Schachner didn’t go on to graduate school, but also discussed how influential George Mosse and Harvey Goldberg were on many of the activists.

00:24:30	Question: Black Thursday? Answer: He discussed how upset his friends, including Michael Rosen and others, were at hearing what was happening in Oshkosh, and explained how Nathan Hare from SFSU came to challenge Willie and Libby Edwards to push for stronger action on the UW campus.

00:27:39	Follow up: Your involvement, then, happened in February? Answer: He referred to his class notes to suggest that in early February, he was involved in the planning process of the black students’ strike, which was controlled exclusively by the “Wapinduzi Weusi.” He attended one meeting of the Wapinduzi Weusi as a proxy for Michael Rosen, who was the only white permanent member.

00:32:40	Follow up: After this, what was your involvement? Answer: He explained that in the first days of the strike, he was given a crucial responsibility to carry out with SDS, but didn’t feel at liberty to discuss what that was.

00:35:35	Follow up: What activities do feel at liberty to talk about? Answer: He talked about Rosen’s responsibility to stay in communication with the leadership about the presence of police. In this capacity, he was once assaulted by white football players who would have seriously hurt him had one of their girlfriend’s not intervened.

00:39:00	Follow up: Anything else about the Black Students’ Strike? Answer: He reiterated that he and Rosen were challenged on their seriousness about the strike, which was why they and SDS had to manage an action. He also summed up the timeline of the strike, citing specific documentation he’d collected from various sources.

00:43:25	Question: How did being involved in the Black Students Strike affect you academi-cally? Answer: Citing a study about the importance of the first years of one’s college career, he lamented that two of his professors committed suicide shortly after the strike, which showed what conflict was being vented in the strike. He felt strongly that this was a missing piece in the story of the civil rights movement in the North.

00:47:36	[no question] He related parenthetically that Ralph Hansen was not involved in any way with the Black Students’ Strike, talking about the way black students viewed Hansen and the National Guard.

00:49:35	Question: After Kent State? Answer: Schachner observed that “all bets were off after April 30” (the Cambodian Incursion), but qualified that there was a difference between the post-SDS RYM II (Revolutionary Youth Movement II, of which he was a part) and RYM I (commonly called the Weathermen), which he opposed.

00:52:10	Question: Graduation? Answer: He graduated in 1970, but didn’t attend graduation, escaping UW without having an arrest.

00:53:22	Question: Sterling Hall? Answer: He remembered how upset he was about it, which led him to convene a meeting in London of UW alumni to discuss how they lamented how their years at UW would be remembered.

00:55:52	Question: The Black Panther Party coming to UW? Answer: He remembered screening attendants at this protest to make sure no one had weapons.

00:56:49	[no question] Reeves and Schachner concluded the interview by discussing how Congress had authorized the Civil Rights History Act, which included oral histories.

00:59:00	End of First Interview Session

End of Oral History #1384