Students against the dictatorship

The stops

1. 1

   Stop 1: 24 March 1962

   Alameda da Universidade, 1600 / 1649 Lisboa

   Today: Cidade Universitária – University of Lisbon

   

   With the Students’ Day celebrations banned, the students gathered here on the morning of 24 March 1962. Riot police charged them several times, at the University Stadium and in the Campo Grande, making arrests and beating them.³ Two days later, the student associations of Lisbon and Coimbra declared “luto académico” (academic mourning) — a strike from classes, which the dictatorship prohibited.

   The open-air plenary meetings were something new. At one of them, according to a PIDE report, the medical student Isabel do Carmo spoke — the first woman to take the floor at a plenary meeting of the crisis — and proposed offering flowers to the police, “the most beautiful weapons created in Portugal”.¹ Since 1987, 24 March has been National Students’ Day.³

   • 24 Mar 1962Students’ Day banned: the 1962 academic crisis begins
   • 26 Mar 1962Declaration of “luto académico” (academic mourning)
   • 1962Isabel do Carmo, the first woman student to speak at a plenary meeting
   • 4 Jun 1962Police charge at the Faculty of Medicine; Lindley Cintra assaulted

   «Memória Presente» — As mulheres no movimento associativo estudantilComissão Comemorativa 50 Anos 25 de Abril · 8 March 2024 · 17:06

   RTP Arquivos · Video · broadcast on 26 March 1962 · 1 minCrise Académica de 1962Students gathered at the Cidade Universitária, with “Dia do Estudante” (Students’ Day) stickers on their lapels, in plenary meetings in front of the Rectorate and the Faculty of Letters. A banner reads “They offended you, go into mourning, only united can we triumph” (“Ofenderam-te enluta-te, só unidos poderemos triunfar”).Open in the archive
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   To stop 2by metro, train or busDirections

2. 2

   Stop 2: The rector who resigned

   Alameda da Universidade, 1649-004 Lisboa

   Today: Rectorate of the University of Lisbon

   

   The rector was Marcelo Caetano. Greeted with applause by the students, he defended the university’s autonomy from the balcony of the Rectorate; when the Government banned Students’ Day again, on 5 April, he resigned.⁴ During the three months of mourning, the open ground in front was the scene of countless plenary meetings.⁵

   Six years later, Marcelo Caetano succeeded Salazar as head of government.⁶

   • 5 Apr 1962Marcelo Caetano tenders his resignation as rector
   RTP Arquivos · Video · broadcast on 26 March 1962 · 1 minCrise Académica de 1962Students gathered at the Cidade Universitária, with “Dia do Estudante” (Students’ Day) stickers on their lapels, in plenary meetings in front of the Rectorate and the Faculty of Letters. A banner reads “They offended you, go into mourning, only united can we triumph” (“Ofenderam-te enluta-te, só unidos poderemos triunfar”).Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 3by metro, train or busDirections

3. 3

   Stop 3: The hunger strike

   Avenida Professor Gama Pinto, 1649-004 Lisboa

   Today: Cantina Velha (Old Canteen) of the University of Lisbon

   

   On 9 May 1962, eighty-one students began a hunger strike here, on the proposal of the medical student Eurico de Figueiredo; some 1,500 joined them inside the canteen in solidarity. In the early hours of the 11th, the police surrounded the building and went in, and the students were arrested one by one.⁷

   Once in prison, a group of women students kept up the protest and refused even the sandwiches the police offered them. Among the women strikers, the PIDE identified Laura Larcher Graça, Isabel Vila Maior, Maria da Conceição Santinho, Maria Emília Teles Tavares, Maria Fernanda Guerra and Maria José Barreiro Marques. The hunger strikers were expelled from the university.⁷

   • 9 May 1962Hunger strike in the Cidade Universitária canteen
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4. 4

   Stop 4: The House of the Students of the Empire

   Avenida Duque de Ávila, 23 (esquina com a Rua D. Estefânia), 1000-138 Lisboa

   Today: Office and residential building

   

   Created in 1944 by the regime itself, to cultivate “imperial unity” among the students who came from the colonies, the House of the Students of the Empire did the opposite: Amílcar Cabral, Agostinho Neto, Marcelino dos Santos, Joaquim Chissano and Alda do Espírito Santo all passed through here. Its publications and its bulletin Mensagem (Message) are at the origin of the African literatures in Portuguese.⁸

   During the 1962 crisis, the House’s duplicating machines served the student associations. In 1965 it was dissolved, and the PIDE confiscated its archive and library.⁹

   What you can see today

   A commemorative plaque from Lisbon City Council, set into the pavement in front of the building (1992).⁹

   • 6 Sep 1965Closure of the House of the Students of the Empire
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   To stop 5by metro, train or busDirections

5. 5

   Stop 5: Delgado’s rally

   Praça José Fontana, 1050-129 Lisboa

   Today: Camões Secondary School

   

   On 18 May 1958, in the middle of the presidential campaign, Humberto Delgado gave a speech in the gymnasium of this secondary school (liceu); the text of the speech is among Manuel Mendes’s papers, at the Casa Comum.¹⁰ According to the journalist João Paulo Guerra, the scenes of police violence that had greeted the general’s arrival at Santa Apolónia were repeated after this rally.¹¹

   • 18 May 1958Humberto Delgado’s rally at the Liceu Camões
   Casa Comum – Fundação Mário Soares e Maria Barroso · Document · May 1958Discurso proferido pelo Sr. General Humberto Delgado […] no Ginásio do Liceu de CamõesThe seven-page text of Humberto Delgado’s speech at the rally in the gymnasium of the Liceu Camões, on 18 May 1958. It is part of Manuel Mendes’s papers.Open in the archive
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   To stop 6by metro, train or busDirections

6. 6

   Stop 6: The Técnico

   Avenida Rovisco Pais, 1, 1049-001 Lisboa

   Today: Instituto Superior Técnico – University of Lisbon

   

   On 8 December 1968 the PIDE raided the Students’ Association of the Instituto Superior Técnico, seized documents and identified students; the association and the Institute were closed until the end of the holidays.¹²

   On the night of 12 October 1972, hours after the death of Ribeiro Santos, three hundred students meeting here decided to bring the university to a standstill and go to the funeral en masse.¹³

   • 8 Dec 1968The PIDE raids the Técnico Students’ Association
   • 15 Jun 1962A plenary meeting at the Técnico suspends the academic mourning
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7. 7

   Stop 7: To know Africa

   Rua Actor Vale, 37, 1900-078 Lisboa

   In 1951 a group of African students set up their headquarters in this house — “an enormous house, at 37 Rua Actor Vale, at the top of the Alameda”, where Alda do Espírito Santo, from São Tomé, lived. This was the home of the Centre for African Studies, run by Mário de Andrade, Amílcar Cabral and Francisco Tenreiro, among others. The aim, in the words of the doctor António Tomás Medeiros, was “to know Africa”.¹⁴

   The centre broke up when the older members left: for Paris, for Germany, for prison. Alda do Espírito Santo went back to São Tomé; Noémia de Sousa, the Mozambican poet, “disappears”, says Medeiros.¹⁴

   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 8by metro, train or busDirections

8. 8

   Stop 8: 12 October 1972 — the shot in the lecture theatre

   Rua do Quelhas, 6, 1200-781 Lisboa

   Today: ISEG – Lisbon School of Economics & Management

   

   In a prefabricated lecture theatre at the Higher Institute of Economic and Financial Sciences (ISCEF), students were holding a “meeting against repression”. They spotted a stranger whom they took for a DGS informer; the school called the political police, who sent two agents. A confrontation broke out, and the agent António Gomes da Rocha fired. José António Ribeiro Santos, a 26-year-old law student, was killed; José Lamego was wounded.²¹⁵

   In the room was Aurora Rodrigues, who later joined the Movement for the Reorganisation of the Party of the Proletariat (MRPP) and would be arrested and tortured in 1973.¹⁶ The agent was never tried.²

   • 12 Oct 1972Student Ribeiro Santos shot dead by the PIDE/DGS at the ISCEF
   • 3 May 1973Arrest of Aurora Rodrigues

   Vidas Prisionáveis — Aurora Rodrigues (testemunho completo)Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade · 7 February 2021 · 01:22:19

   Casa Comum – Fundação Mário Soares e Maria Barroso · Document · November 1972Ribeiro SantosA leaflet on the murder of the student Ribeiro Santos, calling a meeting at the Higher Institute of Economic and Financial Sciences (ISCEF) for 14 November 1972. It is two pages long, from the Alberto Arons de Carvalho collection.Open in the archive
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9. 9

   Stop 9: The funeral

   Calçada Ribeiro Santos, 1200-869 Lisboa (junto ao Largo de Santos)

   Today: Calçada Ribeiro Santos (formerly Calçada de Santos)

   

   Ribeiro Santos lived on this steep street, and his home often served as a meeting place. On 14 October 1972 the funeral left from here for the Ajuda Cemetery: some five thousand people, the coffin carried on the students’ shoulders, charges by riot police, some twenty arrests.¹⁷

   The first street-naming edict after 25 April, on 30 December 1974, gave the street his name, with the caption “Antifascist Activist” (Militante Antifascista). Since 2012 a plaque on the house has remembered him.¹⁷

   What you can see today

   Since 2012, a plaque on the house: “Here was born and lived José Ribeiro Santos, 1946-1972”. The street has borne his name since 1974.

   • 14 Oct 1972Funeral of Ribeiro Santos
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