The strike’s momentum begins to wane on Monday, February 17, with numbers down to about seven hundred, but strikers continue to obstruct streets and disrupt classes. Some shout down Professor George Mosse as he attempts to lecture on European cultural history, but Mosse takes a historian’s view of the incident and is nonplussed. Late in the day, the Black People’s Alliance, WSA, and Third World Liberation Front issue a statement calling on students to return to class and engage their professors and classmates on the underlying issues.[i]
On Tuesday, BPA leader Willie Edwards tells a small rally of about 150 that the strike is officially suspended. Over the seven weekdays of the strike, attendance in classes on and around Bascom Hill has been off by about 10 percent, while the western campus generally had full attendance. That afternoon, about half the guardsmen are sent home, with the rest to follow on Thursday.[ii]