Madison in the Sixties – the Black Studies Strike of February 1969, part 3.
As disruptions from the Black Studies Strike escalate, local law enforcement can’t keep up, so Mayor Otto Festge and the university leadership ask Governor Warren Knowles to call out the Wisconsin National Guard. The first battalion of nine hundred guardsmen begin arriving—in jeeps with guns permanently attached—around 9:30 Wednesday night, February 12.
They prove a mixed blessing. They keep campus buildings open and are more restrained than Madison police and Dane County deputies. But they also trigger a reaction among students, causing strike participation to grow sharply and prompting an escalation of response. That afternoon, about seven thousand strikers take to the streets under the disciplined direction of Black marshals. The crowd blocks University Avenue four times in two hours, until strikers are removed by police with clubs and guardsmen with fixed bayonets. Police club some students, fire a couple of tear gas cannisters into crowds to clear intersections, and make ten arrests, but there are no major confrontations. At about 6 p.m., Governor Knowles activates another 1,200 guardsmen.[i]
That night, close to ten thousand students, many with torchlights, march from library mall to the Square and back. The march is self-policed and orderly, marred only by some racist catcalling by a few onlookers.[ii]
After the march, about five hundred go to 6210 Social Sciences to hear SDS cofounder and Chicago Eight defendant Tom Hayden talk about the war, which he says America has lost. His appearance is unrelated to the strike, and except for saying that the activation of the National Guard is “the last trump card of the establishment,” he demurs commenting on the action.[iii]
On Friday, things are calming down, with only some token picketing of academic buildings and targeted obstruction of University Avenue. The Guard and police from outside agencies are withdrawn from the central campus, but not deactivated. A noon march to the Capitol and back disrupts traffic but is disciplined and peaceful, as is another torchlit march of about a thousand that night.[iv]
Meanwhile, at their meeting in Milwaukee, the regents unanimously commend Chancellor Young for his handling of the crisis but demand an investigation into the “Black Revolution” conference; several say it sparked the disruptions.
Young tells the regents of the potential for trouble beyond the Thirteen Demands. “Even if we had no Black students on campus,” he says, “we would still have difficulties, because there is a determined group of white students who are truly revolutionary and say that this is a corrupt and rotten society, and that it ought to be destroyed.”[v]
Saturday, a petition supporting the university administration “in its refusal to surrender to mob pressure and lawless force, in its determination to continue normal educational activities, in its efforts to deal with problems, including those involving the disadvantaged members of society, through rational methods” is signed by 1,372 of the 2,050 faculty members.[vi] The campus is quiet; the biggest excitement is at the Camp Randall Memorial Building, where two thousand fans cheer the Wisconsin track team to victory over Michigan State; Coach Charles “Rut” Walker takes no action against the eight Black trackmen who boycott the meet.[vii]
The strike’s momentum begins to wane on Monday, February 17, with numbers down to about seven hundred, but strikers continue to obstruct streets and disrupt classes. Some shout down Professor George Mosse as he attempts to lecture on European cultural history, but Mosse takes a historian’s view of the incident and is nonplussed
On Tuesday, BPA leader Willie Edwards tells a small rally of about 150 that the strike is suspended, pending Wednesday’s special faculty meeting called to consider their demands. Over the fourteen days of the strike, attendance has been off by about 10 percent; some classes were shut down and some were reduced to half, while the western campus generally had full attendance. That afternoon, about half the guardsmen are sent home, with the rest to follow on Thursday.[viii]
In the predawn hours of Wednesday, February 19, arsonists set nine separate fires, which heavily damage the UW Afro-American Race Relations Center, 929 University Ave. The center has been the main meeting place for the strike leaders.[ix]
Later that day, faculty vote at a special meeting, 524–518, against recommending that three Black students expelled from Oshkosh be immediately admitted to the Madison campus.
Monday afternoon, Governor Warren Knowles tells a press conference that his fellow Republicans controlling the legislature should “not adopt legislation on the basis of prejudice or panic.” In the two weeks since the Black Strike started, Assembly Speaker Harold Froelich and others have introduced a raft of bills to punish protesters and cut state support for the university.[x]
That night, the Faculty Committee on Studies and Instructions in Race Relations, chaired by Professor William Thiede, recommends establishment of a Black Studies Department, the primary demand of the strike.[xi] But because students would not have equal authority with faculty in establishing curriculum, making appointments, and granting tenure, the Daily Cardinal denounces the report as an “utterly unacceptable [and] insulting compromise [that] recommends only token efforts and denies even a token student participation.”[xii]
After several days pass with little progress, Black leaders frustrated at the lack of action on the Thiede Committee recommendation call for a resumption of the strike. In a forty-five-minute outburst on Thursday, February 27, about two hundred mostly white militants invade eight campus buildings, doing about $2,000 in damage and setting off a smoke bomb that drives right-wing state senator Gordon Roselip from the stage of a Social Sciences classroom. Chancellor Young calls these deeds “acts of desperation by a small group of militants who have lost most of their following.” At about the same time, the State Senate gives final legislative approval to a joint special committee, its members overwhelmingly Republican, to investigate campus disturbances. Black Council leader Horace Hanson later denounces the property damage but says it is “not the place of the Black Council to impose sanctions upon those whose intense reaction to destructive oppression has been destruction.”[xiii]
On March 3, by a vote of 540–414, the faculty endorses the Thiede Committee’s recommendation for an autonomous Department of Afro-American Studies within the College of Letters and Science. The regents approve the detailed plans for the new department in January 1970, with an expected start date that fall – making the Black Studies Strike of February 1969 Madison’s most successful political protest of the era.
And that’s this week’s Madison in the Sixties. For your award-winning listener-supported WORT News team, I’m Stu Levitan.
L. Roger Turner of strikers returning to campus after a march to the Capitol, February 14, 1969. Courtesy Capital Newspapers.
[i] Pommer and Hunter, “Troops, Cops Use Tear Gas to Rout U. Avenue Blockers,” CT, February 13, 1969; ‘Strike Goes On, More Guard Coming,” DC, February 14, 1969; Roger A. Gribble, “UW Strikers Clash with Troops, Police,” WSJ, February 14, 1969; Gilbert, “Their Time & Their Legacy,” 49–50; Schachner OH #1384; Edwin Young testimony, Joint Committee, April 30, 1969.
[ii] James Oset and Victor Yehling, “Mass March Backs UW Black s’ Stand,” WSJ, February 14, 1969; George Mitchell, “UW Protesters Show Discipline,” WSJ, February 14, 1969.
[iii] Rich Wener and Peter Greenberg, “Hayden’s Speech Follows Parade,” DC, February 14, 1969; “SDS Leader Tells UW Students America Has Lost the Viet War,” CT, February 14, 1969; Jeffrey Schachner email[to author?], October 31, 2017.
[iv] Whitney Gould, “U.W. Black s Vow Not to Quit until Their Demands Are Met,” CT, February 14, 1969; Gribble, “Troops, Police Quit Campus,” WSJ, February 15, 1969; George Mitchell, “Disciplined Group Continues March,” WSJ, February 15, 1969; “Guard Withdraws; 800 Disrupt Traffic, Violence Averted,” DC, February 15, 1969; Mike Frost and Len Fleischer, “Fifth Day Torch March to Capitol Sees Police Clubbings, Arrests,” DC, February 15, 1969.
[v] BOR minutes, February 14, 1969; Pommer, “U.W. Regents Back Young; Seek Report on Symposium,” CT, February 14, 1969.
[vi] Pommer, “1,372 on Faculty Support Actions of Administration,” CT, February 15, 1969.
[vii] John E. Mollwitz, “Silence Reigns on UW Campus,” WSJ, February 16, 1969.
[viii] Ron Legro, “Strike Called Off until Thurs.,” DC, February 19, 1969; Gribble, “Strike Halt Calms UW Campus,” WSJ, February 19, 1969; Ralph Hanson testimony, Joint Committee, March 28, 1969.
[ix] Dieckmann, “Arson Blamed in UW Blaze,” WSJ, February 20; Peter Greenberg, “Arson Destroys Race Center,” DC, February 20, 1969.
[x] Selk, “Keep Cool, Knowles Urges Critics of UW,” WSJ, February 25, 1969.
[xi] Pfefferkorn, “Black Studies Unit to Be Urged,” WSJ, February 25, 1969.
[xii] Editorial, “Expected,” DC, February 27, 1969.
[xiii] Greenberg, “Blacks Organize to Resume Strike at Noon Today,” DC, February 27, 1969; Richard W. Jaeger, “Protesters Leave a Destructive Path,” WSJ, February 28, 1969; Franklin Berkowitz, “Strikers Interrupt Roselip Appearance,” DC, February 28, 1969; Selk, “Legislative Probe of Campuses Set,” WSJ, February 28, 1969; Whitney Gould, “Campus Is Quiet; Rally Fizzles Out,” CT, February 28, 1969; Gould, “‘Like Theater of Absurd,’” CT, February 28, 1969; “Black Council Hits Damage to Property,” CT, March 4, 1969.
[i] Pommer and Hunter, “Troops, Cops Use Tear Gas to Rout U. Avenue Blockers,” CT, February 13, 1969; ‘Strike Goes On, More Guard Coming,” DC, February 14, 1969; Roger A. Gribble, “UW Strikers Clash with Troops, Police,” WSJ, February 14, 1969; Gilbert, “Their Time & Their Legacy,” 49–50; Schachner OH #1384; Edwin Young testimony, Joint Committee, April 30, 1969.
[ii] James Oset and Victor Yehling, “Mass March Backs UW Black s’ Stand,” WSJ, February 14, 1969; George Mitchell, “UW Protesters Show Discipline,” WSJ, February 14, 1969.
[iii] Rich Wener and Peter Greenberg, “Hayden’s Speech Follows Parade,” DC, February 14, 1969; “SDS Leader Tells UW Students America Has Lost the Viet War,” CT, February 14, 1969; Jeffrey Schachner email[to author?], October 31, 2017.
[iv] Whitney Gould, “U.W. Black s Vow Not to Quit until Their Demands Are Met,” CT, February 14, 1969; Gribble, “Troops, Police Quit Campus,” WSJ, February 15, 1969; George Mitchell, “Disciplined Group Continues March,” WSJ, February 15, 1969; “Guard Withdraws; 800 Disrupt Traffic, Violence Averted,” DC, February 15, 1969; Mike Frost and Len Fleischer, “Fifth Day Torch March to Capitol Sees Police Clubbings, Arrests,” DC, February 15, 1969.
[v] BOR minutes, February 14, 1969; Pommer, “U.W. Regents Back Young; Seek Report on Symposium,” CT, February 14, 1969.
[vi] Pommer, “1,372 on Faculty Support Actions of Administration,” CT, February 15, 1969.
[vii] John E. Mollwitz, “Silence Reigns on UW Campus,” WSJ, February 16, 1969.
[viii] Ron Legro, “Strike Called Off until Thurs.,” DC, February 19, 1969; Gribble, “Strike Halt Calms UW Campus,” WSJ, February 19, 1969; Ralph Hanson testimony, Joint Committee, March 28, 1969.
[ix] Dieckmann, “Arson Blamed in UW Blaze,” WSJ, February 20; Peter Greenberg, “Arson Destroys Race Center,” DC, February 20, 1969.
[x] Selk, “Keep Cool, Knowles Urges Critics of UW,” WSJ, February 25, 1969.
[xi] Pfefferkorn, “Black Studies Unit to Be Urged,” WSJ, February 25, 1969.
[xii] Editorial, “Expected,” DC, February 27, 1969.
[xiii] Greenberg, “Blacks Organize to Resume Strike at Noon Today,” DC, February 27, 1969; Richard W. Jaeger, “Protesters Leave a Destructive Path,” WSJ, February 28, 1969; Franklin Berkowitz, “Strikers Interrupt Roselip Appearance,” DC, February 28, 1969; Selk, “Legislative Probe of Campuses Set,” WSJ, February 28, 1969; Whitney Gould, “Campus Is Quiet; Rally Fizzles Out,” CT, February 28, 1969; Gould, “‘Like Theater of Absurd,’” CT, February 28, 1969; “Black Council Hits Damage to Property,” CT, March 4, 1969.
