7 Times Student Activists Forged Change

The Greensboro sit-ins, started by four black students from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, were a peaceful protest of the segregated lunch counter inside the Woolworth store in Greensboro, N.C. in February 1960. The demonstrations, which spread to nearby cities and states, eventually led to the desegregation of the Greensboro Woolworth store.

Mark Rudd, a leader of the student protest at Columbia University in New York, speaks to reporters as fellow students, rear, occupy the Low Memorial Library on April 25, 1968. Standing on ledge, center, with hands in pockets, is Juan Gonzalez, another of the student leaders. The 1968 Columbia University Protests targeted a variety of issues, most notably the Vietnam War. In the aftermath, two of the demands set by students were met: Columbia ended its ties to a controversial weapons-related think tank, and halted a plan to build a disputed gym.

Students occupy Harvard's University Hall during a demonstration on April 9, 1969. As part of the takeover, students removed all Harvard administrators from the building. A massive police raid wrested the protesters from the building, leading to over 300 arrests. The conflicts ultimately led to changes including the establishment of an Afro-American Studies department.

Kent State University students, including anti-war demonstrators, flee as National Guardsmen fire tear gas and bullets into the crowd on May 7, 1970 in Kent, Ohio. The guardsmen killed four students and wounded nine others. The event triggered a national student strike, escalating protests and garnering national media attention for the anti-war movement.

Several thousand students crowd into Sproul Plaza on the University of California-Berkeley campus in protest of the university's business ties with apartheid South Africa on April 16, 1985. The University of California eventually authorized the withdrawal of three billion dollars worth of investments from the apartheid state.

Kerstin Cornell yells outside the office of University of Michigan President Lee Bollinger during a sit-in on March 17, 1999. Students began the sit-in to protest sweatshop conditions in factories that make licensed apparel for the school, which was the nation's leading university in the sales of licensed apparel and other goods. The university established an Anti-Sweatshop Advisory Committee that spring.

Students participate in a die-in at Harvard Medical School Medical Education Center on Dec. 10, 2014. The protest was held in response to the decisions by authorities to not bring indictments in the police killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York. The Black Lives Matter movement has found support at campus's across the country.