Joseph Alkana, Professor of English, recalls being a high school student in New York when a teacher's strike engaged the African American community. [On May 9, 1968, 19 junior high school teachers in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville area of Brooklyn were fired. They were white; the school board that fired them was predominantly black. The crisis led to three teachers' strikes and angry confrontations between African-American and white New Yorkers.] Alkana joined anti-war demonstrations and was tear-gassed and arrested several times, but became disenchanted with the factionalism and authoritarianism that he also found among anti-war protesters. He dropped out of college and identified himself as part of the counter-culture. He recalls joining a medical team at the Siege at Wounded Knee in 1973.