What is Hamilton Hall at Columbia University which is the Center for Action in Support of Palestine?

WASHINGTON – Hamilton Hall, an academic building at Columbia University occupied by students protesting against the war Israel in Gaza as early as April 30, has a long history of student protests.

Over the past half century, students have erected barricades there in protest against key moments in history, including the Vietnam War and the growing global momentum against apartheid in South Africa.

Protesters nicknamed the building “Mandela Hall” in honor of the South African liberation leader during the 1985 student blockade. Echoing the 1985 protests, students who took over the building on Tuesday renamed it “Hind Hall” in honor of six-year-old Hind Rajab , who was killed along with his family by Israeli troops in Gaza.

On Wednesday morning, police officers entered the campus, detaining dozens of people in the latest escalation between student-led pro-Palestinian protests and law enforcement authorities.

Such crackdowns, such as the student takeover of Hamilton Hall, are in keeping with the building’s history as an iconic site of protest at Columbia.

What is Hamilton Hall at Columbia University which is the Center for Action in Support of Palestine?

1. Symbolizes the US Financial System

Photo/AP

According to Al Jazeera, this hall was inaugurated in 1907 as a flagship building and is still the dean’s office.

“This is a great day for the campus,” Dean John Howard Van Amringe said at the time. “Our alma mater has its own house – a building more grand and beautiful, as it should be, more graceful and important than any other building on the university grounds.”

An outdoor statue of Alexander Hamilton, who became the United States’ first secretary of the treasury in 1789 and founder of the US banking system, stands proudly at the entrance. Hamilton is generally described as an abolitionist. However, some research suggests that his anti-slavery credentials may have been exaggerated.

In addition to the department’s four offices — German Languages, Slavic Languages, Classical Languages, and Italian — there is the Center for Race and Ethnicity.

Renovations that began in 2000 resulted in the new Core Curriculum Center, which houses the Literary Humanities, Contemporary Civilization, Music Humanities, Arts Humanities, and Primary Culture departments.