The Activism in the 1980s Collection contains 64 mounted photographs depicting marches, demonstrations, and protests in Amherst and Northampton, Mass. Taken by Charles F. Carroll, Byrne Guarnotta, and Libby Hubbard, all UMass Amherst students, the photographs are a vivid record of campus and community activism in the mid-1980s, and especially the mobilization against the CIA and American intervention in Central America and the arrest and trial of Amy Carter and Abbie Hoffman.

Although the protests against the CIA and American policy in Central America predominate, the collection also includes images of events ranging from a Take Back the Night march to rallies for gay rights and protests against racism, American support for the apartheid regime in South Africa, and nuclear weapons. Seven photographs depict right wing counter-demonstrators protesting at the trial of Carter and Hoffman.