Your Manchester: Student Activism in the 1970s
This blog post was written by Ema Fitzekova, MA student in Art Gallery and Museum Studies, as part of the ‘Your Manchester’ student placement project. This project involved developing an exhibition with themes and objects chosen by the students. All research and interpretation in this post is attributable to Ema.
Manchester, with its connection to women’s suffrage and Marxist movements, is a city known for its position at the forefront of social change. This reputation attracts many politically conscious students keen to do their part in changing the world. That is as true today as it was 50 years ago.
The 1970s were a tumultuous period in British history. The decade leading up to the Winter of Discontent was full of strikes and protests, including amongst the student body of Great Britain. During this period, the students at the University of Manchester led one of the largest student protests in the country, with over 3,000 students participating in an occupation of the Whitworth Hall protesting the University gatekeeping their personal files.
In this digital exhibition, we have highlighted three prominent causes the University of Manchester students were fighting for in the 1970s and, in some way, are still fighting for today.
Browsing through the University’s collection, the first item that grabbed my attention was a flyer inviting students to a meeting about a rent strike from 1975. It instantly reminded me of my first year at university, when the Covid pandemic and the infamous lockdown of 2020 created an unforgettable and unique experience. Sitting in my small room in Dalton Ellis Hall, I learned about the issues students were facing in connection with the lockdown through social media. Due to the mandatory isolation at the time, it was hard to connect with other students in real life. Coming together in a movement like the rent strike created a sense of a united student front to me and made me feel like a part of the university’s life — me, who at the time had not been to the university physically and only attended lectures online. Suddenly, I was a part of something. I felt that the rent strike movement was one that created little to no division in the student body — although not everyone participated or felt passionate about it, no students opposed it, as they could only profit from the strike.
In 1975, flyers like this one were an essential part of organizing a strike. Hanging posters and handing out flyers was the best way to reach a wide audience. While one side of the flyer is packed full of information, the other side has a large hand-written call to action: “Owens Park General Meeting on Rent Strike, also “Sabbatical Presidency”? Tonight (Thursday) at 8pm, Be Sure to Be There”. With limited technological resources, it was difficult to create complex visual designs and the organisers often had to rely on their own artistic skills and prioritise practicality over the visual engagement we are used to today.
The 1975 rent strikes were inspired by a large disparity between the increase in rent and the increase in student grants. While rent went up by 33%, student grants only increased by 14%. The flyer takes good care to communicate to its readers the importance of a strike and how individuals can help. It also points out the importance of Owen’s Park and Oak House as centres for the movement: “If you are in Owens Park there is a good chance you are already on rent strike, likewise at Oak House.” These student halls are some of the largest on campus, and it is no wonder that they were at the forefront of change as many students were congregated in one place and thus could communicate easily. The 2020 rent strikes also occupied Owen’s Park tower, cementing it with an air of historicity. The images of banners hanging from the tower became an iconic image for our generation of students, shortly before the tower’s demolition. To know that for the students from 50 years ago the same places held a similar atmosphere of change and progress creates a sense of connection to a larger group of Manchester’s alumni.
Manchester in the nineteenth century became an important centre for two rapidly growing social movements — Marxism and women’s suffrage. In the 1910s, these two movements were united in the form of Socialist feminism, a philosophy which applies Marxist values to the fight for women’s rights. An early proponent of this ideology was the University of Manchester’s own Ellen Wilkinson, who later went on to become Minister of Education in the 1940s. Wilkinson’s main cause in the Communist Party of Great Britain and, later, the Labour Party was the fight for women’s rights. Her political activism dates to her student years, as proven by her famous remark regarding her Upper Second degree: “I deliberately sacrificed my First … to devote my spare time to a strike raging in Manchester”.
The item that we chose to display is a flyer from 1975 inviting students to witness a speech by Selma James, a prominent Socialist feminist writer. The text on the pamphlet was originally published as a part of a longer essay authored by James for the National Conference of Women that took place in Manchester in 1972. The full title of this essay is “Women, the Unions and Work, Or…What Is Not To Be Done” and its main focus is that women deserve to be compensated for their domestic labour and the demands for free childcare and body autonomy. Selma James not only highlights the issues that women are facing, but also provides practical solutions.
After reading this text I began some research into Socialist feminism as the predecessor of contemporary intersectional feminism. In fact, Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term “intersectional feminism”, admitted that she was directly inspired by Angela Davis, a legendary Marxist feminist, who advocated for the same ideals. Selma James’ extensive ouvre includes a lot of writing on the particular struggles women-of-colour face, although the text that Women’s Liberation chose for the advertisement of this specific speech was more focused on class struggle and the importance of political education. The text feels oddly familiar, easily sounding as if it was written in 2024, when the topics that James writes about, such as woman’s right to choose, are still dividing our campus today.
The legacy of the Women’s Liberation movement lives on — in the 1970s the organisation started a movement many of us are familiar with, Reclaim the Night. Fifty years later, the march became an annual event to advocate for the safety of the public spaces for women, to fight against sexual assault and murders, and is now stronger than ever. It is currently being held under the umbrella of University of Manchester’s Student’s Union.
Manchester students’ passion for activism extends to international issues as well. In 1972, students at the University of Manchester took a stand against the Apartheid regime in South Africa by asking the University to give up its shares in any South African companies and thus cease profiting from “active suppression of a whole race”. Our university’s students have also been engaged in the Arab-Israeli conflict since the famous protests against British involvement in the Suez crisis in 1956. 20 years later, the 30th of March became an important part of Palestinian history. It is now known as Land Day to commemorate the day Israeli forces Palestinian land. This event elicited a general strike organised by Palestinian citizens as a response.
The global concern for Palestinian rights shows in the poster in our display. This poster was published in 1976 by the International Union of Students’ magazine, which originated in Czechoslovakia. While the IUS was originally established in Prague in 1946 to connect students from all countries, it quickly became the victim of the Cold War. Many Western countries felt an organisation with headquarters in Eastern Bloc and funded by the Communist regime would influence the students towards Communism and a new student counter-organisation was established with headquarters Stockholm. However, the new organization was short-lived, as it was revealed it was secretly funded by the CIA to oppose Communism among students, and the IUS once again became the main international student organization.
It is understandable that students in Manchester, with its many Socialist and Communist societies, were drawn towards the IUS and subscribed to their magazines. Among the other official members of the IUS was the General Union of Palestinian Students and the organisation was openly supportive of the Palestinian cause. To this day, the bond between the University of Manchester’s student Socialists and the fight for the plight of Palestinian people is being maintained, as the majority of the current pro-Palestinian protests are being organized by contemporary Socialist societies. This connection and the current pro-Palestinian protests are what made me pay closer attention to the item, which still feels relevant in 2024. Although the main issues and the situation in Palestine have changed over the years, the hope hasn’t died and students are still passionately driven to fight for what they believe is right, as proven by the many protests that took place this academic year.
The issues discussed in this exhibition were serious in the 1970s, and they are still not fully resolved to this day. Whilst feminists are no longer burning bras in a fight for the legalization of the contraceptive pill, we are still fighting against the wage gap, fighting to stop violence against women, and fighting for the right to choose. Student rent strikes are still taking place as a platform for some students to express dissatisfaction with their living conditions and university support in a time of crisis. The fight for the rights of Palestinian people has changed from the 1970s, as Palestine was acknowledged by many countries as an official state in the 1980s. The focus today has shifted towards calls for a ceasefire, as the nation has become the centre of a military crisis. While these issues may seem never-ending, there has been gradual change taking place, and student activists have certainly helped this change.
Ovid once wrote that “dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.” The social activism of students at the University of Manchester brings about real change. Let this look into the past of student activism be also a message to the future — a message to keep fighting for what we deem important and to keep Manchester at the forefront of social change.
The University of Manchester digitised Special Collections material is made available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC 4.0) wherever possible. For further information on digital images and to request high resolution copies please contact our Imaging team.
See the other blog in this series: https://medium.com/special-collections/your-manchester-an-exploration-of-manchesters-legacy-of-student-activism-d4c31a68710b
