BLACK STUDENT PROTEST

Madison police on campus.

Student unrest at the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison had become a common activity leading up to February 1969. The issues opposed by the campus activists included domestic concerns, University policies and the Vietnam War. The first student occupation of a building on campus took place in May 1966 as students gathered to protest the military draft.

A turning point in protests came in October 1967 during the second Dow Chemical campus visit as the police and student confrontation turned violent. Agitation against the war and social issues simmered below the surface afterwards and had the potential to erupt into violence again after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968, but the University's quick response to the tragedy helped to prevent the rioting that took place at other campuses around the country.

Scuffles such as this one broke out on Feb. 13, 1969, as demonstrators blocked university buildings over objecting students.

After King's assassination, black students came to the administration to seek more black courses. A result of the meeting was the formation of the Committee on Instruction and Race Relations. The University sought ways to improve race relations on campus, to increase its minority enrollment and course offerings and started a scholarship program for minority students.

Student unrest continued, however, by the white students who were now confronting the faculty at the department level, demanding an equal voice in grading, curriculum and faculty tenure. Similar demands were being made by the black students during the fall of 1968.

Black students began boycotting classes on Nov. 25. Leaders of their movement went through buildings on campus, trying to pull out other black students from class to join the boycott. The Student Black Curriculum Committee of the Black People's Alliance (BPA) made demands of the University's administration, one of which was a black curriculum for black students, and felt a boycott was one way to have their demands met.

This demand for academic reform by white and black students was to be the precursor of one of the largest student protests in the history of the University of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin State Journal, Feb. 9, 1969

The black student protest of February 1969 was the largest mass student action up to that time, involving as many as eight to ten thousand demonstrators at a time. The unrest lasted for over a period of three weeks. The protests often turned violent with considerable property damage on and off campus.

The majority of the students participating in the strike were white, as there were only 174 black students at the University of Wisconsin during the 1968-1969 school year. The Student Senate of the Wisconsin Student Association voted on Sunday, February 9, to support the strike. The following day the strike began with the picketing of classes and buildings.

The black students were seeking concessions from University officials to their list of 13 demands. The demands centered around the setting up of a Black Studies department with full control by blacks students of the curriculum and faculty.

Wisconsin State Journal, Feb. 15, 1969

As the week progressed the unrest grew. By Wednesday, February 12, the National Guard was called to the University of Wisconsin for the first time in history to help control the rioting. In order to have their demands met, a major goal of the demonstrators was to shut down the university.

Madison police officers and National Guardsmen worked together to keep the University of Wisconsin campus open.

University of Wisconsin Chancellor Edwin Young said, however, that one demand transcends all others - "it is that the doors of the University of Wisconsin remain open."

"I want to make it absolutely clear that neither black students nor white students are going to decide matters of faculty hiring or course curriculum," Young said. "In these areas particularly, all students will be treated alike. These are not matters for students to decide."

During the weeks of protests, 36 students were arrested and three suspended. The students were hopeful their cause would be supported by the faculty, but to their disappointment, 1,372 faculty members, or 67 percent of the faculty, signed a petition supporting the administration's hard line against the student strikers. The petition, which was presented to the chancellor on Feb. 15, rejected "surrender to mob pressures and lawless force."

Wisconsin State Journal, Feb. 16, 1969

In early March, the University faculty voted to create a new black studies department, but it did not allow equal authority for students. One of the leaders of the black student revolt summed up the feelings of many of the demonstrators when he said,