Interview with Larry Lewin

Partial Transcript: Okay. On October 18th, 1967, I was a freshman living in Sellery Hall.

Segment Synopsis: Larry was a freshman in a class at Commerce Hall on October 18th. He talks about stepping through a crowded hall full of “hippies.” When Larry left to get his hat from his class, he returned to the hallway and saw police approaching. He ran back to Sellery Hall and discussed the events of the day with his floormates.

Keywords: Commerce Building; police

Partial Transcript: The next day, October 19th, all of my teaching assistants went out on strike, protesting the violence at the Commerce Building.

Segment Synopsis: The following day, his TAs cancelled class and held a strike. After days of more strikes, Larry began writing. This, he says, led him to pursue a career in education. He believes that witnessing the Dow Demonstration was a formative experience that led to his 24 years as a public school teacher/advocate and 50 years as a political activist.

Keywords: TA Strike; activism; student strikes; teaching

Partial Transcript: So I had a couple of questions for you, because it was really interesting.

Segment Synopsis: Question: Do you remember the content of the rumors that people were spreading after the Dow Demonstration? Answer: Larry believes that most of his peers were confused and were trying to process the situation with no context. Larry states that the move began to shift after the TA strike and that many of the students, including himself, were radicalized by the event.

Keywords: radicalization

Partial Transcript: Were you originally from Oregon?

Segment Synopsis: Question: Were you originally from Oregon? What prompted you to move out west? Answer: Larry grew up in Milwaukee. He decided to move out west because he wanted to live on a coast. He enjoys that Eugene, Oregon is a “nucleus of progressive thought.”

Keywords: Madison; West Coast

Partial Transcript: A couple years later, there was that bombing in Sterling.

Segment Synopsis: Question: Do you remember the Sterling Hall Bombing? Answer: Larry returned from a summer job in Boston and remembers waking up in the middle of the night to an explosion. He “instantly knew” that a bombing had occurred and believes that Dow and Sterling incidents had a “linear connection.” Larry talks about growing disillusionment among students who felt that peaceful protests were ineffective between 1967-1970.

Keywords: protests; violence

Partial Transcript: What would you say if you had to take a guess, and you said that this kind of affected the rest of your life...

Segment Synopsis: Question: How did the Dow Demonstrations affect the rest of your time as a student on the UW Campus? Answer: Larry talks about his involvement in various other social movements in addition to the anti-war protest. He had a girlfriend involved in the feminist movement. He believed that his experience in Madison led him “on a trajectory” towards social and political activism. He talks about leadership within the anti-war movement.

Keywords: anti-war movement; civil rights; feminism; social activism

Partial Transcript: Right. And had you - had you heard that Dow was coming before they came?

Segment Synopsis: Question: Had you heard that Dow was coming before they came? Answer: Larry was not aware of the protests before they occurred. He believes that, prior to the demonstrations, he would not have even understood what was happening on campus.

Keywords: Dow Chemical; napalm

Partial Transcript: You said as you were leaving Commerce Hall that day you saw the police paddy wagons pulling up.

Segment Synopsis: Question: How did the police carry themselves? What did they say? Answer: Larry remembers that the police appeared serious and silent as they approached in their paddy wagons. Larry had interactions with police after October 18th at protests, but he currently only remembers being confused by their presence and running from the scene.

Keywords: Commerce Building; police interactions

Partial Transcript: Yeah. Those diary entries you mentioned sound really interesting...

Segment Synopsis: Larry reads a diary entry of his from October 19th, 1967. In the entry, he discusses the pain of wanting change and the apathy/disgruntlement of adults in Madison towards student protesters. Larry believes that, by this point, the aftermath of Dow had “planted the seeds” of liberalism into his mind.

Keywords: radicalization

Partial Transcript: Do you have any sense of why your friends and roommates also kind of moved left really fast?

Segment Synopsis: Question: Do you know why your friends and roommates moved “left” really quickly? Answer: Larry believes that he and his friends became “radical” so quickly because they often discussed politics after the Dow Demonstration. Larry discusses a roommate who was part of the ROTC: he believes that the political tensions on campus may have caused him and his roommate to drift apart. He states that all of his other friends became, and continue to be, politically progressive.

Keywords: ROTC; radicalization

Partial Transcript: Do you happen to know, um, or remember if anybody, when you got back to Sellery that night...

Segment Synopsis: Question: Did you know anyone else in Sellery that was “on the other side”? Answer: Larry discusses his friend, Jim Goodman, from his first year and Jim’s wife, who was inside of Commerce Hall during the riots.

Keywords: Commerce Hall

Partial Transcript: Larry, thank you so much for sharing your story.

Segment Synopsis: Question: Additional thoughts? Answer: Larry discusses some ephemera that he intends to send to the Archives.