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University of Wisconsin–Madison
October 1967

Protest Facts

Total UW–Madison enrollment, fall 1967: 33,000

Demonstrators inside the Commerce Building on Oct. 18, 1967: 200 to 250

Total crowd size: At least 2,000 and perhaps as many as 5,000

Number of police officers: At least 150

Length of protest: About seven hours

Weapons used by protesters: Rocks, sticks, pipes, shoes, bricks

Weapons used by police: Billy clubs, tear gas

Number of students treated for injuries at hospitals: Nearly 50

Extent of injuries: Two suffered fractures of minor hand bones. Of the 25 with head and face injuries, 14 had lacerations.

Number of police officers treated for injuries at hospitals: 19

Extent of injuries: One detective required surgery after being struck in the face by an unknown object and knocked unconscious.

Number of protesters suspended by the university: 13

Number of protesters charged with disorderly conduct: 10

Number of students absent from classes the next day in the College of Letters & Science due to a student strike: 4,000 out of 17,000

Number of students typically absent from classes in the College of Letters & Science on any given day: 1,000

Percentage of UW–Madison students in a late 1967 survey who replied affirmatively to the question, “Have you ever been an active participant in any student demonstration?”: 27 percent

SOURCES: UW–Madison archives; historian Stu Levitan; “They Marched Into Sunlight” by David Maraniss
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