The President's speech candidly discussed not only how few African Americans students had been in the college when I was there--just four in my freshman class--- but also reprised the history of struggle on the issue, most notably dramatized by the 1969 takeover by armed black students of the student union at Willard Straight Hall, an event that gave Cornell global publicity of a kind the Administration was most unhappy about.
Cornell's then president, James Perkins, quit or was forced out, although, it now turns ou,t he played a major behind the scenes role in integrating Cornell.
One of the leaders of that take-over, Tom Jones, was there on the reunion weekend, He went from the trenches of that guerilla battle to a seat at the Trustees table. He told me he supports our campaign for the memorial.
I also spoke with President Skorton who also said he backs it too, as well as the former head of the Board of Trustees, and Svante Myrick, the dynamo Mayor of Ithaca who is a Cornell grad and just 26 years old.
The University is officially on record supporting the monument proposal, but, so far, no funds for it have been allocated and there may be battles ahead on what it should be and where it should be located.
The campaign itself raised consciousness in this generation about this all too quickly forgotten history, building alliances across racial, religious sexual, and generational lines.
Some of us are still active on these issues.
My old friend Eric Mann, a Cornell fraternity boy back in the day, was there. His life was changed by the civil rights movement of our era. He is now the brilliant organizer of the very militant and well-organized interracial Bus Riders Union in LA, fighting today's racism and demanding services for the inner city poor.
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