Iowa State University has seen its share of activism and protest, from anti-war rallies in the ’60s to the September 29th Movement in the ’90s.

One more protest is making its way into the history books after Monday’s announcement from Allan Nosworthy, ISU graduate student and member of The September 29th Movement, who said he is beginning a hunger strike.

Wayne Osborn, associate professor of history, said protests on campus have been on-going since the 1960s “when people realized that democracy is more than just voting.”

Osborn said one of the most notorious student activists in ISU history will be on campus next week.

Don Smith, the only Government of the Student Body president ever hung in effigy on the steps of Beardshear Hall, to Osborn’s knowledge, will be in Ames on Oct. 2.

Smith had “a whole article devoted to him in the New York Times,” Osborn said.

Smith was active on campus during the anti-war period of the ’60s and was known for not wearing socks on campus, which, at the time, was viewed as a threat to the institution. “You just didn’t do such radical things at Iowa State University,” Osborn said.

Smith also allegedly smoked illegal substances, Osborn said. “He got the university so much publicity,” Osborn said, although not everyone thought that was a good thing.

Smith is scheduled to speak about political activism Oct. 2 at noon in the Memorial Union.

When Osborn first arrived at ISU, he said there were anti-war marches, sit-ins at draft boards and teach-ins, a concept that came out of the Vietnam War.

“Close the classrooms and liberate the students’ minds,” was one of the student activists slogans, Osborn said.

At the same time, the Story County Grand Jury was commissioned to investigate the campus atmosphere, he said.

“Their conclusion was that Iowa State used to be a safe place to send your sons and daughters,” he said. “When you let the humanities [programs] expand, then you’ve got trouble.”

Other campus figures also remember the days of student activism.

Thomas Thielen, former vice president for student affairs, said student activism on campus has fallen into two categories — peaceful and violent, although the majority has been peaceful.

Boycotts, demonstrations and sit-ins at administrators offices, especially placement offices, Thielen said, are among the forms of civil disobedience that have been demonstrated at Iowa State.

Thielen said students demonstrated around the Knoll, the home for ISU presidents, for the dismissal of classes on a Monday following a weekend football victory which broke a long losing streak.

The president at the time, he said, did come out of the Knoll to address the crowd of students. He said he thinks classes were dismissed as a result of the demonstration.

“In the ’60s, during Vietnam, Iowa State didn’t have the major disruptions,” Thielen said. “There were some fires set and a small bomb was set off in one of the buildings.”

Also among what Thielen categorized as violent protests was an attempt by students to block traffic on Lincoln Way “by using pipes and things they could put in the street, as well as their own bodies.”

Thielen said that was before his time at Iowa State and couldn’t recall why students had done it.