Albany Demonstration: “Save CUNY, Stop the Budget Cuts.”

A series of photographs taken in 1991 at a rally in Albany, NY, ranged from Hunter College students from the School of Social Work and Bronx Community College students to a baby with a Tax the Rich sign. Union members, workers, and students descended the capital, united in solidarity against the proposed austerity measures. In one image, City University of New York (CUNY) students scaled the NY state capital building to hang a banner that stated, “Save CUNY, Stop the Budget Cuts.”

On March 19th, 20,000 people descended on Albany to protest statewide austerity measures in New York. NYC municipal workers, CUNY and SUNY students, and workers from hospitals took part.

The 1991 CUNY strikes were part of the larger story of austerity measures imposed on New York City and the community efforts to resist those measures. On April 16th, students mainly from the Graduate Center Anthropology PhD program occupied the Graduate Center in solidarity with a broader undergraduate mobilization across CUNY against the threat of steep tuition hikes, massive budget cuts, and faculty layoffs. What began as a one-day strike turned into a ten-day take-over in which students and faculty practiced forms of participatory democracy, discussed the root causes of the austerity problems being faced, and debated actions for change. Students often drew on CUNY’s history as the premier urban, public institution of higher education in the United States to argue that education was a right and that the proposed measures threatened working-class New Yorkers' ability to receive an education.

McCaffrey, Katherine

McCaffrey, Katherine

April 1991 (Circa)

McCaffrey, Katherine

Copyrighted

English

Photograph