Interview with Jeffrey Schachner

Partial Transcript: Jeff just to start off then as I said before I turned the recorder on...

Segment Synopsis: 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.

Keywords: UW Madison; University Community Action (UCA)

Partial Transcript: So Jeff, to sort of run a parallel track here...

Segment Synopsis: 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.

Partial Transcript: So '66, the '66 '67 semester obviously is the year before the Dow Riot...

Segment Synopsis: 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.

Keywords: Stock Pavilion; Teddy Kennedy; United Campus Action (UCA); Vietnam War

Partial Transcript: So let's move forward to your second year here unless...

Segment Synopsis: 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.

Keywords: The War at Home

Partial Transcript: I think it's important because we don't know who will listen...

Segment Synopsis: 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.

Keywords: Dow war; SDS; civil disobedience; radicalization

Partial Transcript: So Jeff year two were you still living on campus?

Segment Synopsis: 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.

Keywords: Billiards Parlor Restaurant; Burgerville; Gino's Italian Restaurant; Rathskellar

Partial Transcript: That's what I was going to ask, I was going to ask what...

Segment Synopsis: 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.

Keywords: CIA; Martin Luther King, Jr.; National Student Association (NSA)

Partial Transcript: Uh, so this is getting as close to um, the black strike...

Segment Synopsis: 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.

Keywords: Long Island, Ny; R. Kennedy; migrant farm workers

Partial Transcript: So you came back on to campus after the summer at...

Segment Synopsis: 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.”

Partial Transcript: What classes or what professors are you taking classes...

Segment Synopsis: 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.

Keywords: George Mosse; Harvey Goldberg

Partial Transcript: So in the late fall of '69 is when uh what's called Black Thursday...

Segment Synopsis: 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

Keywords: UW-Oshkosh; civil rights movement

Partial Transcript: So then Jeff, it sounds like your involvement in the...

Segment Synopsis: 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. 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.

Keywords: Michael Rosen; Wapinduzi Weusi

Partial Transcript: So what, what do you feel you can talk about?

Segment Synopsis: 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. 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.

Keywords: White Money, Black Power

Partial Transcript: Right and I wanted to um, since I have you here and this is the...

Segment Synopsis: Question: How did being involved in the Black Students Strike affect you academically? 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. [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.

Keywords: civil rights movement, suicide, Ralph Hansen, Kent State shootings

Segment Synopsis: 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.

Keywords: Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM), the Weathermen

Partial Transcript: Do you graduate that spring semester of 1970?

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

Partial Transcript: Since you actually weren't here on, on campus, I still like to...

Segment Synopsis: 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.

Partial Transcript: I guess the one thing... that's in your bio here is that uh Spring of...

Segment Synopsis: Question: The Black Panther Party coming to UW? Answer: He remembered screening attendants at this protest to make sure no one had weapons. [no question] Reeves and Schachner concluded the interview by discussing how Congress had authorized the Civil Rights History Act, which included oral histories.