"The Big Steal"

After Columbia proposed and began to construct a gym in Morningside Park in the 1960s, students and members of the West Harlem community came together in fierce opposition of the stratified gym and the ongoing gentrification of the local neighborhood that it represented. Columbia University’s expansion during this period intensified conflict, as the institution acquired more than ninety residential buildings and converted low-income housing into student dormitories. These actions displaced many Harlem residents, fueling accusations that Columbia was attempting to “sanitize” the area and push out poorer, primarily Black communities. The university’s proposed gymnasium in Morningside Park became the flashpoint. Harlem residents were promised limited access through a separate entrance, an arrangement likened to “Jim Crow” segregation. The “Gym Crow” controversy symbolized broader patterns of racial exclusion and institutional power over marginalized neighborhoods. 

(Slonecker, 2008)

The protests were empowered by the Civil Rights movement, vietnam war and other countercultural movements. These movements were prevalent in both the Columbia community and the surrounding West Harlem community. Students in several groups, such as Students for a Democratic Society and Congress of Racial Equality, organized protests in opposition to the Morningside gym—protests that eventually came to a dramatic halt, leading Columbia to cancel its construction plans.

(Hernandez, 2022)

The Columbia Coalition: Columbia's perceived institutional racism along with the University's complicity in the Vietnam War through the IDA, Institute for Defense, caused a surge in Columbia students and the Harlem community forming a coalition and hundreds upon hundreds actively protesting (Slonecker, 2008).