But the particular form that our own iteration took on the night of November 12 was a shock, even to the by-now seasoned souls of students who have witnessed the past years. Watching these events unfold from Hanover, no one could have doubted that the movement would make its way to Dartmouth within the week. This shockingly potent deployment of activism was joined by an even less predictable outburst when indignant Yale students mobilized to seek the firing of an administrator who declined to police her students’ Halloween costumes, setting off a round of protests on the school’s broader racial climate. The current moment began with the demonstrations at the University of Missouri, when students embittered by a series of racial flare-ups forced their president and chancellor out of office. Over five years of political and racial passions bubbling through our generation look tame next to these seven odd days, as if all the previous campus outbursts were merely a prolonged first chapter.

Looking out over our shaken campus today, it’s uncanny to recall the one short week that brought us to this point. “ The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.”

Protesters gathered on the main stairwell of Berry Library.

Bernie sanders night at the roxbury gif