On April 6, 1968, two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., a confrontation unfolded at the Tuskegee Institute, the historic land-grant college in eastern Alabama now called Tuskegee University. Twelve members of the college’s Board of Trustees, 13 staff members, and 20-some students assembled in a room of Dorothy Hall, a stately brick building where the trustees held an annual campus meeting. On the table before the dignitaries lay an 18-page typed document titled “General Philosophy: A Black University Concept.”
The document, drafted by student activists and framed as a mandate from the student body, argued that the college needed to prepare students to change society, not just to “succeed” within it. Outside, nearly 300 students gathered, blocking the building’s exits. Students inside the building took control of the telephone switchboard and locked the front doors. Tuskegee students had the trustees’ full attention.
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