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All throughout the day on March 4, students throughout the country tweeted updates about local actions on Twitter using the #March4 hashtag. (Hashtags are a way for posters on Twitter to find other people’s posts on a particular subject.)

I posted a bunch of #March4 stuff myself, but at the end of the day, I tweeted that I couldn’t wait for #March5. Someone asked why, I and I said “I can’t wait for #March5 because #March5 is what comes after #March4. #March5 is The Future.”

Well, the future is here.

Early in the morning of Friday, March 5, students at the University of Virginia hung a banner from a campus bridge that read “Public Education Is Under Attack — Stand Up Fight Back.”

There was no huge protest at UVA on March 4, no giant rally, no occupation. But activists on that campus are taking that day’s actions as a spur to something new. They’ll be holding a mass meeting on March 19, in conjunction with protests around a speech by Bush administration “torture memo” author John Yoo, and moving forward from there.

#March5 has arrived.

Posting will be light this morning, as I’m flying out to Madison, Wisconsin to give the keynote address at the Building Unity conference of United Council, Wisconsin’s statewide student association. If you’re near Madison, stop by — I’ll also be speaking at UC’s 50th anniversary gala tomorrow night, and tickets are still available.

If you’re not near Madison, but you are in the Northeast, I’ll be speaking later this month at major student conferences in New York and Washington DC, and I’ll be posting details of both of those events soon.

Most of today’s protests have wound down, or seem likely to in the near future, and the day is coming into clearer focus.

There have been clashes with police. Most notable was the takeover of a freeway in Oakland which ended, one officer estimated, in 150 arrests. One student was injured in that incident, though reports differ as to the severity of his injuries. Students were also arrested or detained in New York, in Michigan, and elsewhere, though rarely in large numbers.

Oakland was not the only place where students took to the streets. One college — UC Santa Cruz — was closed for much of the day after demonstrators blocked both roads onto campus to vehicular traffic. Many other marches spilled off sidewalks onto intersections, even highways, leading a blogger for the Berkeley student newspaper to declare that “freeways are the new buildings when it comes to occupying stuff.”

There weren’t many of those more traditional occupations. Students at UCLA sat in at their chancellor’s office for most of the day, but left peacefully not long ago. At UC Irvine and New York’s Hunter College, students tried and failed to find a space they could take and hold. At the State University of New York at Purchase an occupation was going on this afternoon, but no reports have been heard from it in hours.

At UC San Diego, wracked by racial traumas for weeks, administrators and representatives of the Black Student Union negotiated an agreement that resolved many of the issues that had divided them in the recent past. But UCSD was an exception — today’s protesters rarely articulated immediate demands, and administrators rarely engaged with them. Today was more about activists talking to each other, working with each other, than it was about talking to or working with — or working to overthrow — university power structures.

That part comes later. That part starts March 5.

Reports from the field are still scattered and incomplete, but it’s possible to start talking about how March 4 is shaping up.

Dozens of campuses are reporting rallies and actions, and dozens more have announced plans for forums, teach-ins, and other events. I’ve learned of a number of actions that weren’t on my national map as of last night, and there are surely more I haven’t heard about yet. This is big.

California is clearly leading the way, as it has since this movement began to bubble up last semester. The biggest, best-organized, and most dramatic actions reported so far are all happening in the Golden State.

In part that’s a reflection of the depth of the crisis facing California higher education right now, but it’s also a reflection of the head start that California’s campus organizers have compared to the rest of the country. Almost every campus reporting huge demonstrations today has seen multiple rallies and protests over the last few months. (The California schools that have not been active before today are generally reporting actions that resemble those taking place in the rest of the nation.)

This gap between the ten or fifteen most active California campuses and the hundred or so others taking part in today’s events suggests that for many activists today is a beginning rather than a culmination, and indeed students at more than a few campuses have portrayed today’s rallies as kickoff events for upcoming campaigns.

Students are looking to jump-start their local movements today, and with some traditionally quiet campuses reporting participation measuring in the hundreds of students, they may have done just that.

Last September’s co-ordinated protests at the ten campuses of the University of California system were followed by a statewide lull that lasted for several weeks — it was not until November that the state’s organizing began to pick up momentum. But I will be surprised if the aftermath of today’s protests follows a similar pattern.

Students from coast to coast are feeling their power today. They are envisioning themselves as part of a movement, many for the first time. The next few hours will no doubt be very interesting, but I expect that the days and weeks that follow will be too.

It’s almost noon in California, and closing in on mid-afternoon on the East Coast. I’ll be posting a review of the events of the first half of the day here … starting now.

University of California Santa Cruz | Students blocked both entrances to the campus to vehicular traffic early this morning, prompting the university to send out an alert urging staff and students to stay away. Administrators are passing along reports of intimidation and property damage by students, while students have claimed that two cars attempted to break through the throngs of protesters, injuring one.

Hunter College, New York City | Multiple accounts on Twitter suggest that hundreds of students have been rallying at Hunter College in Manhattan, and it’s been reported that one arrest has been made.

Sacramento, California | An estimated two thousand people are already gathered at the State Capitol building.

California, Statewide | Student demonstrators are entering classes to urge students to walk out at several campuses.

University of Maryland College Park | Students have hung a huge banner from a campus building reading “March Forth: Life Sucks, Let’s Change.”

I’m seeing reports on Twitter and elsewhere from dozens of different campuses across the country, but details are scarce for most of them — students are out marching, not home blogging, and the ones who are updating on Twitter are often posting short cryptic messages. I’m going to go gather some more info, and report back later.