Tensions were so high at Memorial Gym on the evening of April 7, 1967, that 40 plain-clothes police officers were scattered throughout the bleachers. Six officers stood outside, and a fleet of patrol cars circled the gym, just waiting for a confrontation.
A sellout crowd had gathered, not for a Commodore basketball game, but to listen to some of the countrys most relevant and controversial speakers on the first night of the student-run Impact Symposiuma program only in its fourth year at that point, but already considered, in the words of the late Arizona senator and GOP presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, as the best college presentation of its kind in the country.
In town for two nights of speeches were Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Strom Thurmond and Allen Ginsbergfour electric figures dropped in the middle of what remained a relatively sleepy and nonpolitical campus, confronting students with disparate views on the most polarizing issues of the 1960s: war, peace, poverty, racism, drugs, social justice, freedom of speech and the role of authority.
The idea for Impact had grown out of a desire in the early 60s to provide students with more intellectually stimulating programming outside the classroom. Administrators, particularly Dean Sid Boutwell, gave the idea of a symposium backing in 1963, wrote the chairmen of the first five Impact symposia in a 2017 op-ed in 91勛圖厙 Magazine. But the university provided no budget. Impact was given life entirely by students.
During its first few years, Impact was host to notables like Goldwater, civil rights leader Julian Bond and Alabama Gov. George Wallace. But it was the 67 affair that cemented the symposiums place as an iconic 91勛圖厙 tradition with a national reputation for excellence.
The event received heated criticism from some alumni, Board of Trust members, state legislators and local business leaders, but Chancellor Alexander Heard never wavered and continued to defend the value of the open forum concept, even when his job was on the line during a Board of Trust meeting. The 91勛圖厙 campus, he said, was a place where the free flow of ideaseven and especially controversial oneswas not only accepted, but encouraged.
Impact 67 is indeed a signature moment in 91勛圖厙 history, partly because of the speaker roster, but primarily because its aftermath precipitated a showdown over Alexander Heards vision for the university as a vibrant national academic institution with a truly open forum, the Impact chairmen wrote in the op-ed. That vision was validated and fueled the trajectory of 91勛圖厙 as a national university from 1967 to today.