On May 6, 1970, students and faculty at Humboldt State College voted to enact a one-week boycott of classes — a "strike for peace" — to support anti–Vietnam War activism and to send a campus delegation to Washington, D.C., to press legislators on the war.

The vote, held in what was then the Sequoia Theater (now Van Duzer Theater), followed national unrest after the May 4 shootings at Kent State University and the U.S. incursion into Cambodia. The crowd that gathered for the campus meeting that day was described by participants as among the largest single-day political protests in the college’s history. "Every seat in the theater, the hallways, the floor going down into it was just on the stage crammed with students," said Wesley Chesebro, a former student who later served in the California State Senate.

The student strike resolution had two principal measures: a one-week cessation of classes so participants could focus on antiwar organizing, and a delegation to Washington to communicate the campus's stance to federal lawmakers. "Bill Richardson got up and said we need to see if this really represents you, the students... and so he called for a vote," participants recalled. Those present raised their hands in what attendees described as a unanimous vote in favor; organizers reported no precise head count for the vote itself.

Why it mattered: Participants and subsequent local activists say the strike energized a wider civic and political shift in Arcata and Humboldt County. Organizers used local businesses, notably Northtown Books, as a strike headquarters for planning door-to-door canvassing and teach-ins, and several former student activists later ran for City Council seats in 1972; organizers say two were elected.

Origins and campus culture: Local antiwar organizing predated the May 1970 strike. Zach Swerdling, who was a student at Arcata High School in the late 1960s, said he and other high school students distributed antiwar literature and sought city council endorsements. "I was active at Arcadia High School... and concluded pretty early on that it was a disaster and needed to come to an end," Swerdling said; he recalled being reprimanded by a vice principal for speaking in class about the war.

On campus, a tradition of open-air speaking helped incubate dissent. "We had an object on the Humboldt State campus called the speaker's stump. It was our little corner of free speech in the middle of the Humboldt State campus," said Katie Tayah, an author and former student whose history of the university documents the period. Tayah said the campus was geographically distant from Bay Area protest centers, so much of the organizing and debate happened locally.

Nonviolent emphasis and tactics: Participants repeatedly described the Humboldt and Arcata protests as peaceful. "The people I was involved with both at the high school and at Humboldt State were peaceful. Everything was peaceful. We didn't break any rules. We didn't break any laws," a former participant said. Music, communal singing and teach-ins were prominent; attendees said some demonstrators publicly burned draft cards and that organizers coordinated door-to-door outreach across North Coast neighborhoods.

Scale and legacy: Several participants estimated turnout for the May 6 events and related marches at up to 3,800 people. Organizers said the protests helped build a longer-term civic engagement that included environmental activism and electoral participation. "The student involvement and the feeling that we could really make a difference... caused many students to graduate and stay," one participant said.

Formal action and follow-up: After the unanimous campus vote to strike, organizers established a local strike headquarters at Northtown Books and conducted neighborhood canvasses and teach-ins, and the campus prepared a delegation to travel to Washington, D.C. for direct advocacy. Participants reported no violence during the demonstrations in Arcata or nearby Eureka.

Sources and quotes in this article come from recorded recollections by former students and campus participants at a Cal Poly Humboldt oral history event; direct quotations are from those participants as indicated in the transcript.