Student's Day in Colombia

Every June 8 is commemorated in Colombia the Day of the Student, also called Day of the Fallen Student or Day of the Revolutionary Student and extends until June 9.

In June 1929, during the presidency of the conservative Miguel Abadía Méndez, several students of the National University of Colombia raised their voices to demand the resignation of the officials who were involved in the 'Massacre of the Banana Plantations'. There, more than 4,000 workers of the United Fruit Company were killed by the Colombian army while protesting for better working conditions on December 6, 1928.

One of those students, the Pastuso Gonzalo Bravo Pérez, was killed on June 7 at 10:10 p.m., shot by a policeman from the Presidential Battalion. Protests flared up and, since then, June 8 and 9 became a key date for the student movement, which would march since then to commemorate the date.