40 years before Mohammed Bouazizi ignited the Arab Spring, a young American student set himself on fire to protest the atrocities committed against Biafra during the civil war
According to the Columbia Daily Spectator, dated 3 June 1969, Bruce Mayrock, a 20-year-old student at the School of General Studies and a sports photographer for the Columbia Daily Spectator, died after setting himself on fire in front of the United Nations to protest the war.
Mayrock’s self-immolation was only one in a number of reactions to the humanitarian disasters of the Nigerian civil war.