Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

A Dual Responsibility
The White University Must
Respond to Black Student Needs
"The black student awakening
and the contemporary
student activism on America's
campuses point the way
for the enhancement of the
university as an important
institution in our society"
~~~!~:~ N Thursday, April 4,
1968, Dr . Martin Luther
King Jr . was assassinated
as he stood
on the porch of a motel
in Memphis, Tenn . With one
shot, an assassin snuffed out the
life and light of a black leader
whom both his admirers and detractors
respected . Within hours
after King's assassination, riots and
violence swept the nation's black
ghettos . Almost simultaneously,
black students on the nation's predominantly
white campuses began
to hold demonstrations to present
"demands" to college and univerity
administrations . These demands
were repeated as though they were
being played on a phonograph rec-
NEGRO DIGEST March 1969
BY ROSCOE C. BROWN
ord : "more black students," "more
black professors," "more black
courses," "all-black dormitories"
and so on . In a real sense, the black
students had awakened.
What is behind this awakening
of black students throughout the
country? Is it just a reaction to the
King murder? Of course not! Black
students have been in ferment for
over a decade, first in the predominantly
Negro colleges, and now in
the predominantly white colleges .
We should remember that the Civil
Rights Revolution really began
when, in February 1960, a group
of black college students sat down
at a lunch counter in a Woolworth's
store in Greensboro, N.C. (a thing
unheard-of at that time) and refused
to move until they were
served . The "sit-in" was the forerunner
of the mass demonstrations,
the marches, and now the angry
confrontations that are part of the
Civil Rights Revolution-and
black students have been an important
part of all of them .
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