The Havens Center is commemorating the 40th anniversary of Dow Day"" in Madison with three days of lectures and a forum.
The series entitled ""The Day that Changed Madison: The 'Dow Riot' forty years on,"" began Tuesday night with a lecture by Paul Buhle, a lecturer at Brown University, focusing on Madison's history of liberal activism, how it was reinvigorated in the 1960s, and its continuing effects on the university.
According to the Havens Center's website, Dow Day led to a rapid change in the political atmosphere on campus moving Madison into the national forefront of anti-war and anti-draft student activism.
""On Oct. 18, 1967 a peaceful student sit-in against the makers of napalm, 'liquid fire' used extensively by U.S. forces against guerillas and civilians alike in Vietnam, prompted a police assault, then a melee with thousands of students joining the side of the peaceniks,"" according to the website.
Buhle described Dow Day as the ""high point of student response.""
""It went past all radical left wing expectations, transforming politics in Madison as well as life itself,"" he said.
Vicki Gabriner, who was one of the first arrested during the riot, spoke at the panel Wednesday night.
""[Dow Day] was one moment in a whole series of events that had to do with trying to end the war in Vietnam and support the Civil Rights Movement,"" Gabriner said.
Buhle emphasized 1967 as a hinge in the history of Madison, calling it the time of the rebirth of progressive and peacenik trends of the first 40 years of the century.
UW-Madison sophomore Sam Eldred said he attended the lecture because he grew up in Wisconsin having heard about the Vietnam era protests in the 1960s and 70s.
He expressed some disappointment in the lack of specificity of the lecture on the actual riots but enjoyed the open discussion at the end that connected the riots to activism today.
Gabriner, in her first visit to Madison in over 35 years, said she hopes to help people realize the importance of knowing and passing on history so mistakes are not repeated.
""[Dow Day was] part of escalating the kinds of actions I would be willing to take for my political beliefs,"" she said.
The series will continue with a panel discussion Wednesday at 7 p.m. in 1100 Grainger Hall and a lecture by Tom Hayden Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the same location.
